AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Nicole Chettle
Offenders have escaped conviction because cases have been heard separately instead of in a single trial, a deputy senior crown prosecutor has told the royal commission into child sexual abuse.
Richard Herps told the hearing he spent 12 years as a prosecutor in Penrith in Sydney’s west, and that of the 250 District Court trials he handled in the 1990s, nearly half involved child sexual assault.
“The Monday and Wednesday call-overs gave priority to child sex assault matters, which took up at least 40 per cent of the list,” Mr Herps said.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney is looking at the handling of such complaints in the criminal justice system.
Mr Herps said that in Penrith, these cases were almost always heard separately – even if an offender was accused of crimes against several children.
“You were always presenting a single complainant without anyone being able to buttress or support their evidence” Mr Herps said.
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