Queensland school ‘failed’ student after gang-rape allegation

AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Jorge Branco

A Queensland boarding school failed to properly care for a student after she was allegedly gang-raped by older boys while boarding there in 2006, a royal commission has been urged to find.

Counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, David Lloyd, made submissions harshly criticising Townsville’s Uniting Church-run Shalom Christian College’s response to the trauma.

He said, 10 years on, the school still did not have enough money to provide a safe environment for its students.

During hearings in Sydney in November last year, the young woman’s tearful parents said they were pressured not to press charges against the four men involved because they came from “well known and influential families” and that former principal Christopher Shirley was “trying to paint a bad picture of my daughter”.

Mr Shirley gave evidence that he did not try to blame the student, referred to as CLF, and that he did not tell her parents not to report the matter to police.

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