AUSTRALIA
The Australian
SARAH ELKS THE AUSTRALIAN FEBRUARY 18, 2014
A FORMER Catholic primary school principal who was sacked and charged after failing to report child sex abuse allegations to police is now working at another Catholic school as a Year 7 teacher.
Terence Hayes told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that he disclosed his history to the new school – a Catholic P-12 establishment in Burpengary, north of Brisbane.
Mr Hayes was sacked as principal of a Toowoomba Catholic primary school after The Australian revealed he had failed to report to police “serious sexual abuse” allegations in September 2007 about teacher Gerard Vincent Byrnes.
Byrnes was arrested in November 2008 and was later jailed for 10 years for molesting and raping 13 girls at the school, aged between eight and 10, in 2007 and 2008.
Mr Hayes was charged and prosecuted but not convicted for the criminal offence of failing to meet his mandatory reporting requirements.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.