AUSTRALIA
ABC News
[with audio]
The former principal of St Ann’s special school in Adelaide, Claude Hamam, has admitted to the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse that he didn’t do a criminal record check or verify the references of Brian Perkins, a convicted paedophile who went on to abuse about 30 children at the school in the late 1980s and ’90s.
Transcript
PETER LLOYD: The former principal of an Adelaide special school has told the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse that he did not do a criminal record check or verify the references of a bus driver who went on to abuse about 30 intellectually disabled children at the school in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Claude Hamam also acknowledged that he bore some responsibility for allowing Brian Perkins to take some of the St Ann’s children on respite care weekends where they were abused.
Our reporter Samantha Donovan has been following the Royal Commission hearings in Adelaide and joins me now.
Sam, first remind us of what happened at the St Ann’s school.
SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Well, Peter, in the early 1990s it came to light, allegations came to light that about 30 intellectually disabled children had been abused at St Ann’s special school in Adelaide by the school bus driver, Brian Perkins. He not only drove the students but gave them woodwork lessons and even took some of them on respite care weekends.
Most of the children who were abused were unable to communicate what happened to them and that’s why I say about 30 of them were abused and most of the families weren’t told it was likely their children had been abused for more than a decade, and it took about that length of time to get Perkins into court and jailed where he later died.
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