AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Sunday 12 October 2014
There was a climate of fear at the pentecostal school where children as young as six were sexually abused by a teacher who was later jailed, a national inquiry has heard.
Margaret Furlong, who still teaches at Melbourne’s Northside Christian college, told the child sexual abuse royal commission on Monday she had reported her concerns that another teacher, Kenneth Sandilands, was behaving inappropriately with children.
She then trusted “godly men” to do the right thing.
Furlong, who worked at the primary school from 1987 until 1998, said three children had complained Sandilands was touching them.
One girl, Emma Joy Fretton, wanted to be transferred from his class “because he did bad things” but wasn’t allowed to.
Fretton, now 34, on Friday told the commission Sandilands abused her for three years from 1987, touching her, beating her with a wooden paddle and making her sign obscene stories which he dictated to her.
Furlong said she reported her concerns to the then-principal Neil Rookes, but told the inquiry there was no follow up.
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