Sex abuse victims have lost faith in justice, inquiry told

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

NOVEMBER 18, 2014

Amos Aikman
Northern Correspondent
Darwin

MORE victims of a convicted sex offender who allegedly abused Stolen Generation and other children at a Darwin missionary home in the 1960s and 70s are afraid to come forward ­because they have lost faith in the legal system, former residents say.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard evidence a series of failures by police and the Northern Territory ­Director of Public Prosecutions led to cases against pedophile ­Donald Henderson being dropped.

Henderson, convicted of abusing two boys at a Darwin swimming pool in the 80s, was never prosecuted for sex crimes he ­allegedly committed while working as a “house parent” at Retta Dixon Home, despite at one stage facing more than 80 charges.

Legal representatives of former Retta Dixon children told the commission — which yesterday heard submissions on what it should find — that children in Henderson’s care had suffered a “horror show” of abuse.

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