AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Monday 9 February 2015
A victim of child sex abuse should not necessarily go to police if the perpetrator has not offended for decades and the abuser has repented to God, a senior Jewish leader has told a royal commission.
Rabbi Yosef Feldman also said rabbinical organisations issuing statements to the media in support of abuse victims might prompt “fake victims” to go to police, and proven victims to exaggerate their stories.
The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, before Melbourne’s county court, is investigating abuse within the Orthodox Yeshivah organisations and their communities in Sydney and Melbourne for the first time.
“There should be a lot more leniency on people who have shown that they haven’t offended in the last 20 years or decades, and they’ve had psychological analyses … and if they have done repentance,” Feldman said on Monday.
“Even for victims, knowing repentance is a big thing, they would understand how repentance is the main point. They should respect that specifically – if they [the perpetrators] have repented and if they have [paedophilic] tendencies, and don’t act on that.”
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