Police pressured by archbishop to extradite pedophile bus driver

By Mark Schliebs And Louis Mayfield
Australian
March 20, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/police-pressured-by-archbishop-to-extradite-pedophile-bus-driver/story-fngburq5-1226859574576#

POLICE acted at the behest of Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson in extraditing pedophile bus driver Brian Perkins in 2002 after earlier refusing attempts to bring him to justice in South Australia, the royal commission into child abuse heard yesterday.

South Australian child abuse investigator Detective Sergeant Gregory Ramm also told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that child pornography involving people linked to St Ann’s Special School in Adelaide was seized in Britain but never properly investigated.

Local detectives weren’t granted time to investigate “thousands” of photographs and videos received by police in 1993, he said, because of an order from the late assistant commissioner Colin Watkins that was later subject of an internal corruption investigation. The inquiry heard anti-corruption branch investigators did not criticise Watkins for shutting down Operation Deny - an investigation into an Adelaide-based international pedophilia ring - in their final report.

Perkins - who abused and produced pornography of several intellectually disabled children from St Ann’s between 1986-91 - was extradited from Queensland in 2002, 11 years after police seized photographs of students at his home. Sergeant Ramm said senior police and the Director of Public Prosecutions knocked back his recommendation to have Perkins extradited in 1998 because it was deemed too expensive.