AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Thursday 5 February 2015
The head of an Orthodox Jewish college in Sydney said he had no obligation to tell police that an alleged child abuser and staff member was planning to leave the country.
Rabbi Pinchus Feldman said that in 2002 the alleged abuser, identified only as AVL, was told by leaders of the Yeshiva college in Bondi that a complaint had been made against him and that authorities would be notified.
Just a few hours later, AVL told Feldman he might leave the country, to which Feldman responded: “We are not holding you back”, the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse heard.
AVL, a rabbinical student and teaching assistant at the college, left Sydney less than 48 hours later and now lives in the US. He has never been charged, the commission hearing at Melbourne county court heard.
“He held his own ticket and made his own decision as to what he wanted to do,” said Feldman, who is also the head emissary for New South Wales.
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