Police Investigated Salvation Army Paedophile Ring Allegations in 1990s

The Guardian
January 30, 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/30/boys-rented-police-failed-investigation

Detective Inspector Rick Cunningham (wearing sunglasses) began investigating allegations of abuse at the Bexley home more than a decade after it had closed down. Photograph: ABC News

A New South Wales police strike force investigated whether a Salvation Army officer was running a paedophile ring and renting out boys, a royal commission has heard.

However, it did not find enough evidence to pursue the case.

Strike Force Cori, which was set up after the Wood royal commission to investigate allegations of paedophilia against a district court judge, also looked at whether Captain Lawrence Wilson, who managed the Salvation Army's home for boys at Bexley in south Sydney, organised a paedophile ring.

Wilson had been acquitted on multiple charges of buggery and indecent assault in 1997.

The Salvation Army has since paid out more than $1.2m in compensation – some of it to victims of Wilson.

Detective Inspector Rick John Cunningham, who was a member of the strike force in 1998, told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse on Thursday that he investigated allegations by a man, FV, who alleged Wilson sent him out to three homes where he was sexually assaulted by adults.

The first time was by a man and a woman who he met in Wilson's office. They were dressed in Salvation Army uniforms. They took him to their home and both sexually abused him.

The inspector said FV reported that when he tried to tell Wilson the response was “these are good people I sent you to” and he was caned 18 times.

FV said he was sent out on three occasions to three different sets of people – once to two women who took him to their house and abused him, he said, and another time to a poultry farm.

He said he was caned each time he came back.

Cunningham gave evidence of trying to find the houses with FV, but he could only identify a street in Punchbowl which had changed over the 20 years since the assaults were alleged.

In reply to Kate Eastman, senior counsel for the Salvation Army, he said during the investigation they spoke to 45 former residents of Bexley. None made allegations similar to FV.

He said he did not ask specific questions about it and never put it to Wilson or the Salvation Army.

Wilson died in 2008, the same year the Salvation Army wrote to NSW police setting out certain allegations against him at Bexley and in Queensland.

Cunningham said he was not aware of that letter but police probably did not investigate because it was not policy to go fishing for victims.

This was because allegations needed to be treated carefully from the victims' perspective in case they raised memories which were painful to them.

The hearing continues.