AUSTRALIA
7 News
ABC
BY COURT REPORTER CANDICE MARCUS
March 21, 2014
A former Adelaide school principal has admitted wrongly telling an inquiry he had done a police check on a bus driver who later molested pupils.
Reading a statement to the royal commission into child sexual abuse, Claude Hamam said he had made an “error of judgment” by telling an internal inquiry in 2001 that he had made the checks on Brian Perkins.
The royal commission is examining how St Ann’s Special School, the Catholic Church and South Australian police responded to allegations Perkins was sexually abusing intellectually disabled students.
“I made a mistake. It was an error of judgment on my part. I did not in any way fabricate the truth,” Mr Hamam said in a statement he read to the hearing before giving evidence.
“I admitted in a subsequent interview with Catholic Education that I had not done a police check, and I was accused of lying.
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.