Queensland Police Were Aware of Abuse Allegations in 1970s, Commission Hears

The Guardian
February 5, 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/05/queensland-police-salvos-abuse-1970s-royal-commission

Justice Peter McClellan addresses the hearing room during the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. Photograph: Jeremy Piper/AAP Image/Royal Commission POOL

Queensland police were aware of allegations boys held in state care were being flown to Sydney to be abused by a millionaire and a chef in the mid-1970s, a former assistant police commissioner says.


Retired assistant commissioner David Jefferies told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse that he received information a Queensland millionaire, known as JA, flew boys to Sydney to be abused as part of a paedophile ring.

"This JA was certainly known as a millionaire and had, I believe, a construction business, and we certainly had received information about children actually going to his home," Jefferies said.

"We were aware that boys in state care and from some institutions had in fact been flown to Sydney."

Jefferies said he had a hazy recollection a chef was involved in the allegations, but could not speak to whether the man lived in Paddington, New South Wales.

Working for Queensland's Juvenile Aid Bureau from 1968 through 1989, Jefferies said he investigated allegations four paedophiles were operating in the northern Brisbane suburbs and the Gold Coast in the early 1970s.

One, JA, was a millionaire, and the other was a schoolteacher known to the commission as JB.

"Four suspects were arrested," Jefferies said.

"However ... [we] were told that more experienced detectives would deal with JA and JB.

"In the event the only conviction that resulted were against the two suspects that [partner Dugald] McMillan and I dealt with."

Jefferies said he could not categorically say whether the boys in the allegations he investigated came from the Alkira Salvation Army Home for Boys.

The royal commission is examining the Salvation Army's response to child sexual abuse allegations at four of its homes.

A retired Salvation Army major, Clifford Randall, gave evidence on Tuesday that a boy who absconded from the Alkira home in Indooroopilly and returned after a few days later said he and his friend had been flown to Sydney by a wealthy Brisbane shop owner and taken to the home of a "top chef" in Paddington.

The hearings continue.