AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)
By AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
How did a pedophile stay a Scout leader, evade NSW working-with-children vetting processes, become CEO of a children’s home, get close to fostering a child and escape early prosecution?
The first public hearing of the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse wanted answers to those questions when it sat on September 16, 2013 at Governor Macquarie Tower in Sydney.
Steven Larkins, former Scout leader and general manager of Hunter Aboriginal Children’s Services (HACS), was jailed in 2012 for a string of offences against children and for offences committed to avoid detection.
There had been reports about him since the early 1990s.
Five institutions – Scouts Australia NSW, HACS, the Department of Community Services (DoCs), the Commission for Children and Young People, and the NSW Police Force – were under the commission’s spotlight.
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