AUSTRALIA
ABC – Lateline
[with video]
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 17/02/2014
Reporter: Leonie Mellor
The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse has heard a Queensland Catholic school was initially reluctant to act against a teacher who was eventually convicted of raping some of the girls in his class.
Transcript
EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: The Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse has heard a Queensland Catholic school was initially reluctant to act against a teacher who was eventually convicted of raping some of the girls in his class. The sex attacks began on the primary school pupils in 2007. The inquiry started taking public evidence in Brisbane today and heard from angry parents as well as the school’s former protection officer, who blamed some of the children for not coming forward. From Brisbane, Leonie Mellor reports for Lateline.
LEONIE MELLOR, REPORTER: The shocking sequence started in 2007. 13 girls in Year Four were abused by their teacher, Gerard Byrnes.
GAIL FURNESS, COUNSEL ASSISTING: 10 of the offences were particularly serious and involved digital, anal and vaginal rape. All but two offences were committed by Byrnes during class time in his classroom at the primary school.
LEONIE MELLOR: The commission heard that despite strict protocols, the Catholic primary school …
GAIL FURNESS: … employed and re-employed a teacher against whom credible and serious allegations of child sexual abuse had been made without taking any action against him.
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