AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Joshua Robertson
Monday 9 November 2015

A former South Australian deputy premier has said he was “naive” to give a known paedophile teacher – who he had spared from dismissal when education minister – a personal reference that enabled him to work in Queensland and Northern Territory schools where he sexually abused more students.

Donald Hopgood told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse he had a “misguided” sense of obligation to Gregory Robert Knight – who he knew in 1978 had sexually assaulted three students – because Knight conducted a concert band in which the minister played trumpet.

Despite being warned by the South Australian crown solicitor that the only available course was dismissal lest Knight remain a teacher in that state or elsewhere, Hopgood rescinded his sacking of Knight in 1978.

He then failed to ensure the South Australian teacher…