AUSTRALIA
The Australian
THE AUSTRALIAN FEBRUARY 21, 2014
TWO Catholic church officials have admitted failing to inform police when told of the sex abuse allegations against a teacher at a church-run primary school.
Senior education officers Christopher Fry and Ian Hunter were sacked from the Toowoomba Catholic Education Office in 2009 after it was revealed they failed to act on the sexual assault complaints about pedophile teacher Gerard Vincent Byrnes two years before.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is investigating the Toowoomba scandal, revealed by The Australian , because it occurred recently and despite prevention procedures.
Former Toowoomba principal Terence Hayes has given evidence admitting a nine-year-old girl told him in September 2007 that Byrnes put his hands up her skirt and inside her shirt.
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