- Ignoring a plea for help
- By Gary Hughes
- The Age
- 10/07/2004 Make a Comment
- Contributed by: admin ( 100 articles in 2004 )
Children complained but the police didn't act, leaving a pedophile to prey on a town's children. By Gary Hughes.
"There is this guy in (name of town) and he rapes girls and he had tried to do it to my best friend but I haven't been there (to his house) and I'm never going there."
That note, printed in a childish scrawl and handed to child-abuse counsellors running a school workshop in December 1999, triggered a sequence of disturbing events that would eventually reveal how Victoria Police failed the children of a small Victorian town.
It would also expose practices and attitudes within the ranks of some of Victoria's most senior sexual abuse investigators that this week led police to call in an officer from interstate to review the operations of its sexual crimes squad and leave two experienced detectives facing a disciplinary inquiry and possible transfer.
And it would show how bungling and poor police work left an alleged serial pedophile free to continue preying on children in the town.
The alarm bell first rung in 1999 by that child's note would not be properly responded to until investigators from the Ombudsman's office visited the town four years later in their attempt to piece together what went wrong. They were startled to find children still regularly visiting the alleged pedophile's house and alerted police and the Department of Human Services.
"It is of serious concern to me that the children remained at risk as a result of the failure of the sexual crimes squad officers to adequately investigate the allegations . . . appropriately follow up matters and respond appropriately to DHS," the Ombudsman said in his damning report released this week and seen by The Age.
In fact, the litany of police failures in the small town, which cannot be named because it could identify victims, began before December 1999. Nine months earlier the regional community policing squad had been called in to investigate concerns about another man in the town believed to be molesting children. Victims were interviewed, but when "inconsistencies" were found in their evidence a senior sergeant and an inspector deemed there was little likelihood of a successful prosecution and the case was shelved.
"It is clear that despite the non-authorisation of the brief of evidence . . . there was evidence that the young persons involved may have been at risk of serious sexual abuse and exploitation," the Ombudsman would later find.
Concerned that children remained at risk, the local school's principal and student welfare co-ordinator called in the Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program to run classroom workshops. As part of the workshops, children were encourage to anonymously write down any concerns they had. The message about girls being raped was just the start.
Notes made by one of the counsellors immediately after and seen by The Age record how three girls asked to speak privately to workers. The girls told how one elderly man lured children with cigarettes and alcohol to what was described as "sessions". "He would sit her on his lap and reach around and touch her private parts," one of the girls recounted. "Heaps of girls in the town went there."
The worker's notes record: "The three girls talked of girls being raped there. We asked what they meant by being raped. They said 'forced to have sex'."
The director of the abuse prevention program, Dr Reina Michaelson, contacted the sexual crimes squad in Melbourne. The detectives arranged to meet her the next day in the town to talk to the children. When the three male detectives eventually arrived, they were several hours late. The Ombudsman would later establish that they first visited the police who had carried out and shelved an investigation nine months earlier. By the time they reached the school they had, it seems, already reached conclusions about the latest allegations.
The interviews with the children, according to the Ombudsman, were cursory to say the least, lasting a mere 15 to 20 minutes. Investigators would later find that notes taken by the detectives "provide only a brief summary and fail to provide any details of the questions asked . . . or any precise detail of what the young person said in response". The accounts made by the detectives were also contradictory. In comparison, the notes taken by Michaelson's assistant at the interviews were described as more comprehensive.
But according to the Ombudsman's report, even the "sketchy" notes taken by detectives showed that a victim known only as Child 1 "provided police with sufficient information and detail to indicate that (name of alleged offender) had specifically sexually abused her friend in her presence by touching her on the breasts and genitals and that such abuse had been going on for 12 months".
The 12-year-old girl also told detectives that the alleged elderly offender "tried to kiss me, feel me as well, tried to get you drunk, showed us his dick . . . wanted to have sex". This was enough to show that this girl also "was herself the victim of the sexual conduct".
But the police were not impressed.
The attitude and approach of the male detectives (the Ombudsman would later say a female officer should have been on the team) worried both the child witnesses and those sitting in on the interviews, including the experienced welfare co-ordinator. She described it as designed "to stop a child from talking" and showing that police thought Child 1 was "being a bad person".
Child 1 would tell Ombudsman's investigators that she felt she was being blamed for what had happened and that the detectives would "emphasise parts of the question and make out to me I was in the wrong or why I was there . . . like getting a lecture kind of thing".
The senior detective in the team told the other adults at the interview that he doubted the girl's evidence, despite having not spoken with other children who could support her evidence. "This appears to reinforce the view that police had prejudged this witness," the Ombudsman said. Indeed it did.
The senior detective, when interviewed by Ombudsman's investigators earlier this year, made it clear he thought the girl had it coming and should carry the blame for any abuse she suffered at the hands of the man, who is in his 60s.
"My view was that if anything was going on it was at the hands of . . . the instigator, which was the child," the detective said. "She was standing over or was probably standing over (the alleged offender) for money, cigarettes and alcohol and the allegations that she had made were unable to be proven and unable to be substantiated."
When the Ombudsman's investigators quizzed the detective about how pedophiles groomed child victims and coerced them into abusive relationships, the detective "demonstrated very little, if any, insight into this process". And when it was suggested that his belief a 12-year-old girl could "stand over" a much older man indicated a considerable power shift, he "stated that this was not an unusual situation".
When the detectives finished their interviews with the children, they retired to the town's pub where the met the local policeman. His attitude, as uncovered by Ombudsman's investigators, was even more disturbing. "He expressed the view to my investigators that if Child 1 had been at (the alleged offender's) house and he asked her to do him . . . sexual favours, she would willingly do it to get money or cigarettes, although she would say in her statement that she was forced to do it," the Ombudsman's report said.
"During his interview with my investigators he referred to Child 1 as 'a little slut'."
Not surprisingly, the sexual crimes squad investigation was closed on the grounds that "no criminal offences were disclosed".
But the bungling did not stop there.
The senior detective advised the school principal and welfare co-ordinator to contact DHS and report their concerns, which they did. But DHS later said it did not pursue the matter because the sexual crimes squad and local police told them a full investigation had been carried out and the children were safe.
And this despite the fact that the day after interviewing the victims the detectives called at the alleged offender's house and saw two children, including the 12-year-old girl, climbing over the back fence and running off.
And so the children in the country town remained at risk for another four years, at least.
The senior detective in charge of the investigation is one of two officers now facing a disciplinary inquiry. The Ombudsman also found that the two may have lied under oath during his inquiry and the pair will have to justify to the assistant commissioner for crime, Simon Overland, why they should not be transferred.
Victoria Police will reopen the case, along with three others in which the Ombudsman found allegations of child sexual abuse had not been adequately investigated.
This week Overland admitted that the Ombudsman's report, which won't be made public, was a further blow that the already-battered reputation of the Victoria Police could have done without.
He also conceded that it had damaged the trust between sexual assault victims and police that is essential if offenders are to be brought before the courts.
"Trust is an issue," he said.
"There is this guy in (name of town) and he rapes girls and he had tried to do it to my best friend but I haven't been there (to his house) and I'm never going there."
That note, printed in a childish scrawl and handed to child-abuse counsellors running a school workshop in December 1999, triggered a sequence of disturbing events that would eventually reveal how Victoria Police failed the children of a small Victorian town.
It would also expose practices and attitudes within the ranks of some of Victoria's most senior sexual abuse investigators that this week led police to call in an officer from interstate to review the operations of its sexual crimes squad and leave two experienced detectives facing a disciplinary inquiry and possible transfer.
And it would show how bungling and poor police work left an alleged serial pedophile free to continue preying on children in the town.
The alarm bell first rung in 1999 by that child's note would not be properly responded to until investigators from the Ombudsman's office visited the town four years later in their attempt to piece together what went wrong. They were startled to find children still regularly visiting the alleged pedophile's house and alerted police and the Department of Human Services.
"It is of serious concern to me that the children remained at risk as a result of the failure of the sexual crimes squad officers to adequately investigate the allegations . . . appropriately follow up matters and respond appropriately to DHS," the Ombudsman said in his damning report released this week and seen by The Age.
In fact, the litany of police failures in the small town, which cannot be named because it could identify victims, began before December 1999. Nine months earlier the regional community policing squad had been called in to investigate concerns about another man in the town believed to be molesting children. Victims were interviewed, but when "inconsistencies" were found in their evidence a senior sergeant and an inspector deemed there was little likelihood of a successful prosecution and the case was shelved.
"It is clear that despite the non-authorisation of the brief of evidence . . . there was evidence that the young persons involved may have been at risk of serious sexual abuse and exploitation," the Ombudsman would later find.
Concerned that children remained at risk, the local school's principal and student welfare co-ordinator called in the Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program to run classroom workshops. As part of the workshops, children were encourage to anonymously write down any concerns they had. The message about girls being raped was just the start.
Notes made by one of the counsellors immediately after and seen by The Age record how three girls asked to speak privately to workers. The girls told how one elderly man lured children with cigarettes and alcohol to what was described as "sessions". "He would sit her on his lap and reach around and touch her private parts," one of the girls recounted. "Heaps of girls in the town went there."
The worker's notes record: "The three girls talked of girls being raped there. We asked what they meant by being raped. They said 'forced to have sex'."
The director of the abuse prevention program, Dr Reina Michaelson, contacted the sexual crimes squad in Melbourne. The detectives arranged to meet her the next day in the town to talk to the children. When the three male detectives eventually arrived, they were several hours late. The Ombudsman would later establish that they first visited the police who had carried out and shelved an investigation nine months earlier. By the time they reached the school they had, it seems, already reached conclusions about the latest allegations.
The interviews with the children, according to the Ombudsman, were cursory to say the least, lasting a mere 15 to 20 minutes. Investigators would later find that notes taken by the detectives "provide only a brief summary and fail to provide any details of the questions asked . . . or any precise detail of what the young person said in response". The accounts made by the detectives were also contradictory. In comparison, the notes taken by Michaelson's assistant at the interviews were described as more comprehensive.
But according to the Ombudsman's report, even the "sketchy" notes taken by detectives showed that a victim known only as Child 1 "provided police with sufficient information and detail to indicate that (name of alleged offender) had specifically sexually abused her friend in her presence by touching her on the breasts and genitals and that such abuse had been going on for 12 months".
The 12-year-old girl also told detectives that the alleged elderly offender "tried to kiss me, feel me as well, tried to get you drunk, showed us his dick . . . wanted to have sex". This was enough to show that this girl also "was herself the victim of the sexual conduct".
But the police were not impressed.
The attitude and approach of the male detectives (the Ombudsman would later say a female officer should have been on the team) worried both the child witnesses and those sitting in on the interviews, including the experienced welfare co-ordinator. She described it as designed "to stop a child from talking" and showing that police thought Child 1 was "being a bad person".
Child 1 would tell Ombudsman's investigators that she felt she was being blamed for what had happened and that the detectives would "emphasise parts of the question and make out to me I was in the wrong or why I was there . . . like getting a lecture kind of thing".
The senior detective in the team told the other adults at the interview that he doubted the girl's evidence, despite having not spoken with other children who could support her evidence. "This appears to reinforce the view that police had prejudged this witness," the Ombudsman said. Indeed it did.
The senior detective, when interviewed by Ombudsman's investigators earlier this year, made it clear he thought the girl had it coming and should carry the blame for any abuse she suffered at the hands of the man, who is in his 60s.
"My view was that if anything was going on it was at the hands of . . . the instigator, which was the child," the detective said. "She was standing over or was probably standing over (the alleged offender) for money, cigarettes and alcohol and the allegations that she had made were unable to be proven and unable to be substantiated."
When the Ombudsman's investigators quizzed the detective about how pedophiles groomed child victims and coerced them into abusive relationships, the detective "demonstrated very little, if any, insight into this process". And when it was suggested that his belief a 12-year-old girl could "stand over" a much older man indicated a considerable power shift, he "stated that this was not an unusual situation".
When the detectives finished their interviews with the children, they retired to the town's pub where the met the local policeman. His attitude, as uncovered by Ombudsman's investigators, was even more disturbing. "He expressed the view to my investigators that if Child 1 had been at (the alleged offender's) house and he asked her to do him . . . sexual favours, she would willingly do it to get money or cigarettes, although she would say in her statement that she was forced to do it," the Ombudsman's report said.
"During his interview with my investigators he referred to Child 1 as 'a little slut'."
Not surprisingly, the sexual crimes squad investigation was closed on the grounds that "no criminal offences were disclosed".
But the bungling did not stop there.
The senior detective advised the school principal and welfare co-ordinator to contact DHS and report their concerns, which they did. But DHS later said it did not pursue the matter because the sexual crimes squad and local police told them a full investigation had been carried out and the children were safe.
And this despite the fact that the day after interviewing the victims the detectives called at the alleged offender's house and saw two children, including the 12-year-old girl, climbing over the back fence and running off.
And so the children in the country town remained at risk for another four years, at least.
The senior detective in charge of the investigation is one of two officers now facing a disciplinary inquiry. The Ombudsman also found that the two may have lied under oath during his inquiry and the pair will have to justify to the assistant commissioner for crime, Simon Overland, why they should not be transferred.
Victoria Police will reopen the case, along with three others in which the Ombudsman found allegations of child sexual abuse had not been adequately investigated.
This week Overland admitted that the Ombudsman's report, which won't be made public, was a further blow that the already-battered reputation of the Victoria Police could have done without.
He also conceded that it had damaged the trust between sexual assault victims and police that is essential if offenders are to be brought before the courts.
"Trust is an issue," he said.
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