AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By JOANNE McCARTHY Jan. 24, 2014
THE Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse will investigate the adequacy of sentences for child sex offenders after a damning assessment of the case of Scout leader and Hunter Aboriginal Children’s Services chief Steven Larkins.
The commission will consider whether good behaviour bonds are ‘‘an appropriate punishment for the sexual assault of a child’’, counsel assisting Gail Furness, SC, said in written submissions on the Larkins case.
In 2012 Larkins was sentenced to a minimum 12 months’ jail for fraud and possessing child pornography, but received a good behaviour bond for indecently assaulting two Scouts in the 1990s.
Ms Furness said the Royal Commission will be examining the criminal justice system’s handling of child sex abuse in institutions because of material examined during the Larkins case and other material before it.
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