AUSTRALIA
9 News
A pedophile teacher’s continued access to primary school children despite Catholic education authorities knowing he was a risk will be the subject of a public hearing of the royal commission into child sexual abuse which opens in Brisbane on Monday.
It is the first hearing by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to be held outside Sydney.
The hearing at the Brisbane Magistrates Court will inquire into the response of the Catholic Education Office, Diocese of Toowoomba, to allegations of child sexual abuse against teacher Gerard Vincent Byrnes at St Saviour’s Primary School in 2007.
Byrnes was jailed for 10 years in 2010 after pleading guilty to 33 counts of indecent dealing with children under the age of 12, 10 counts of rape and one count of maintaining a sexual relationship with a child under 12.
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