AUSTRALIA
The Australian
MICHAEL MCKENNA THE AUSTRALIAN FEBRUARY 24, 2014
PARENTS of victims of a pedophile teacher at a Toowoomba Catholic primary school are calling for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse to widen its probe to local police officers involved in the initial investigation.
At least three police officers who took statements in the 2008 investigation of the teacher later jailed for the rape and molestation of 13 girls had children who were students and either served on the Parents and Friends Association or whose spouses were senior staff at the school.
Several parents complained to the Queensland Police Service and then-police commissioner Bob Atkinson at the time about the potential for a conflict of interest and the actions of an officer who was organising private meetings between families and school principal Terry Hayes after the teacher was arrested. Mr Atkinson is now one of the six commissioners overseeing the inquiry.
The inquiry will resume public hearings today into the scandal, which centres on the failure of Mr Hayes and Catholic education officials to report to police a complaint they received from a nine-year-old girl about her abuse in 2007. The teacher, Gerard Vincent Byrnes, denied the allegations to Mr Hayes and went on to rape and molest 12 other girls before his last victim complained directly to police.
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