AUSTRALIA
Perth Now
JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
A PAEDOPHILE Scout leader escaped charges as long ago as 1998 because of a police mix-up, the royal commission into child sex abuse was told yesterday.
Steven Larkins was the leader of the Stockton Scout group when an 11-year scout went to Newcastle police in 1997 with his mother and said he had been indecently assaulted during a sleepover at Larkins’ house.
A solicitor with the state’s Director of Public Prosecutions told police to lay a charge of aggravated indecent assault against Larkins, 47.
But a note on the police’s COPS – Computerised Operational Police System – by the officer in charge of the investigation, Sergeant Nigel Turney, on July 7, 1998, stated that he had been told by a fellow officer, Senior Constable Panela Amloh, that the advice from the DPP was that “no prosecution will proceed.”
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