AUSTRALIA
The Educator
by James Reid
07 Nov 2016
The former principal of a north Queensland school allegedly discouraged the parents of a girl who was raped by four boys from reporting the matter to police, the Royal Commission into Child Abuse has heard.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is investigating how Townsville’s Shalom Christian College handled the sexual assault of a 14-year-old female student in 2006.
Last week, the school’s former principal, Christopher Shirley, told the Commission that the school – which he said dealt with about 20 sexual assaults a year – was “very under-resourced”, having been forced to divert money from its education budget to health and wellbeing programs to try to look after its students.
However, the parents of the girl told the Commission they believed the school tried to cover up the 2006 rape and that they were treated like “dumb black people” by Shirley.
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