Principal accepts incompetence over abuse

Australian Teacher Magazine
February 19, 2014

http://www.ozteacher.com.au/news/qld/principal-accepts-incompetence-over-abuse/26455

BRISBANE, Feb 19 – A Catholic principal believed a pedophile teacher was a risk to students but gave him the benefit of the doubt and didn’t report a serious child sex abuse complaint against him.

Terence Hayes has taken the stand for a second time at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Brisbane.

The primary school principal received a complaint from a schoolgirl in 2007 about inappropriate behaviour by teacher Gerard Byrnes, including the most serious allegation that he “had put his hands up our skirts”.

Hayes told superiors at the Catholic Education Office about the girl’s complaint on three separate occasions, including once in writing, but he never told them about the most serious allegation.

Hayes never reported the allegations to police either.

Counsel Assisting Andrew Naylor SC asked Mr Hayes if, by omitting the allegation that Byrnes “had put his hands up their skirts”, he had given the teacher the benefit of the doubt.

“Yes, yes,” Hayes replied.

Commissioner Jennifer Coate then asked if he had believed the child’s allegation.

“Yes, yes,” Hayes replied.

The principal also told the inquiry that he believed Byrnes posed a risk to students at the primary school.

But he said no action was taken against Byrnes, who was also a student protection officer, apart from having another student protection officer, Catherine Long, keep an eye on him.

Hayes accepted that not passing on the information about the allegation to his superiors or police was grossly incompetent.

Byrnes was eventually arrested for child sex offences in 2008, over a year after they were first reported to Hayes.

He was jailed in 2010 for 10 years after pleading guilty to 44 child sex charges, including 10 of rape, involving 13 schoolgirls.

The hearing continues.