AUSTRALIA
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The Victorian state Parliamentary Enquiry into child sexual abuse by clergy has presented its 800 page report to the Victorian Parliament. It is entitled “Betrayal of Trust”. It contains recommendations hoped for, but not necessarily expected, to control the excesses of religious organisations. While the report and recommendations apply only to the state of Victoria, it is anticipated that the reforms will be adopted by other states, and will be revisited by the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. National legislation is likely, eventually, for consistency of approach and to encompass crimes which cross state borders.
The bi-partisan inquiry heard from more than 450 victims over a 12 month period, and its report names the Catholic Church and the Salvation Army as the main culprits. However, it notes that the Catholic Church was responsible for six times as many abuse cases as all of the other churches combined.
It has compiled 604 complaint files, but notes that the number of victims, in Victoria State alone, runs into the thousands. It has referred 135 previously-unreported claims of child sex abuse to the police Sano Taskforce, set up to investigate institutionalized child abuse. More such referrals are expected to be made. Overall, it received 578 submissions and held 162 hearings, of which 56 were private, including in the cities of Melbourne, Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong. As a result, the report states that the churches “stand condemned”.
The Victorian enquiry is one of about 80 enquiries over recent years, so that it is about time for actions as well as enquiries.
The main recommendations from the report are as follows:
1. Compulsory reporting to police – Legislative amendments to ensure that a person who fails to report, or conceals, child abuse will be guilty of an offence. At present, under section 326 of Victoria’s Crimes Act, it must be proved that a person who conceals a serious indictable offence “received a benefit” and the committee recommends that this “element of ‘gain’ should be removed”. At present, this is what has let clergy off the hook, even where a cover-up has been firmly established. The recommendation is in conflict with the Catholic Church’s stance on the “inviolability of the confessional”.
2. New child endangerment offence – Making it a criminal offence for people in authority to knowingly put a child at risk, or fail to remove them from a known risk. This applies to the practice of transferring offenders to new parishes or schools, where new victims are often produced. It thus puts the onus on the official who engages in this practice. The recommendation refers to the situation in which “a person gives responsibility to another for the care of children and is aware there is a risk of harm to those children and who fails to take reasonable steps to protect them from that risk”. There will no doubt be debate about what being “aware there is a risk of harm” means and how “failing to take reasonable steps” is actually defined.
3.A new grooming offence – Creation of a separate criminal offence extending beyond current grooming laws to make it an offence to groom a child, their parents or others with the intention of committing a sexual offence against the child (regardless of whether the sexual offence occurs). A problem with this may be that it would be able to be challenged by smart lawyers for being too vague a definition. Parliament would have to be very specific, as to what constitutes “grooming”, in its legislation here to avoid such problems.
4. Address legal entity of non-government organisations – Require non-government organisations to be incorporated and adequately insured. This is a critical recommendation for the ability of victims to sue churches, and removes the appalling “Ellis Defence” used in the past by Cardinal George Pell to avoid paying compensation (see previous posting). It also removes the practice of setting up trusts for church money which are immune from the courts, for example the bogus “cemetery maintenance trusts” (see previous posting). The provision for compulsory insurance removes the defence of “yes, but we’ll just declare bankruptcy”. In the absence of a clear pathway to the courts, in the past, victims have had to merely accept the church’s, pathetic, settlements.
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