AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph
Girls who reported paedophile teacher admonished, child sex abuse royal commission hears
JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH OCTOBER 14, 2014
THREE girls who tried to alert their school to the fact that a teacher was a paedophile were admonished and their parents called to the school, the child sex abuse royal commission has been told today.
The girls were aged 11 and 12 when they reported their concerns that Kenneth Sandilands had a six-year-old girl on his lap at Northside Christian College and had been touching her inappropriately in 1987.
The headmaster, Neil Rookes, found that there were “some inconsistencies in their account but perceived an element of sincerity” but church pastor Keith Ingram found the girls had largely embellished the incident.
In the witness box today, the former senior pastor of the Northside Christian Church, Denis Smith, was quizzed about whether there was any way to look at the college’s handling of the claims other than “rising” to defend Sandilands.
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