Child sexual abuse: Enough evidence for 1000 hearings

NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald

Simon Collins

The head of an Australian royal commission into child sexual abuse says he has uncovered enough material to justify public hearings on more than 1000 institutions where child sexual abuse has been alleged.

Justice Peter McClellan, who leads the five-year royal commission, told a child abuse conference in Auckland today that institutions were already responding after hearings on 25 institutions so far.

“We are driving change, for example, in the whole daycare/after-school care sector in Australia,” he said.

“We are driving changes in the rules in all boarding schools. We are driving change, starting at the very top, in the whole sporting movement connected with the Olympic movement in Australia.

“How do I know that? Because the secretary of the Australian Olympic Committee rang me up as we were finishing a public inquiry into swimming in Australia and said, ‘I need your help, I don’t have the right processes to manage.”‘

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