AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times
February 5, 2015
The Canberra Times
Editorial
ACT Policing has launched, with some fanfare, an operation to investigate allegations of sexual abuse at institutions in Canberra as long ago as 1951.
As part of the launch, an open letter was published online this week inviting individuals to report incidents of historical sexual abuse, whether as victims or witnesses to such crimes. The letter reassures potential complainants that their matters will be overseen by a “small team of highly trained members who have extensive experience in investigating historical sexual abuse matters”.
Operation Attest, as it has been called, is the outcome of amendments passed in the ACT Legislative Assembly in October 2013 repealing two statutory limitation periods relating to certain historic sexual offences committed between 1951-85. Those amendments, in turn, are an outcome of revelations at the long-running Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that victims of abuse have frequently been prevented from pursuing criminal charges against their abusers by statutes of limitations in the states and territories.
In the ACT’s case, criminal proceedings for some sexual offences, including indecent assault of a male, had to be started within 12 months of the alleged offence.
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