I DESPAIR!

Sometimes I despair. I truly despair. I guess I have been using the expression “who’s looking after the children?’ for more than twenty years. And sometimes I have thought we were making progress. An evil priest, Michael Glennon, sent back behind bars for nearly twenty years. An insensitive, clueless, even callous Governor General pressured into resigning because of his failure to act over a child-molesting parson when Archbishop of Brisbane.

There have been successes for victims. Hetty Johnson, the founder of Bravehearts in Brisbane. And at the weekend South Australian Premier Mike Rann warned the network of paedophiles in his state that they should fear the “tap at the door” after a high-ranking public servant was arrested and charged with sexually abusing three foster-children.

Rann virtually said: you can run but you can’t hide.”

The Premier warned: “I don’t care whether the paedophiles are from the Church, the media, or within the public service – there’s no hiding place left”.

Positive stuff. And then we have the devastating case in Victoria of a confessed paedophile who raped a seven-year-old girl in his care and a judge has let him walk free.

The victim cannot – and should not - be named and I can’t even name the judge because that could, eventually, help identify the victim.

I did that once – merely named a judge in a rape-in-marriage case -- and I Got a $25,000 fine and 250 hours of community service.

A more severe sentence than a child molester got in County Court. The 27-year-old man pleaded guilty after a brave woman wore a wire to record his confession. This man pleased guilty to three sexual assault charges involving a seven-year-old girl. He admitted kissing her, fondling her and digitally penetrating her.

He walked free with 200 hours of community service and advice from the judge to get counselling. This is sick.

To catch the molester the mother of the victim had to sleep in the same bed as him. And risk her own safety by being bugged.

The judge apparently said the offences were “opportunistic”. Hello! This man attacked a little girl at least three times. Each time he got more adventurous. He was a predator with a victim, a plaything, who was seven years old.

The Director of Public Prosecutions MUST appeal this non-sentence. He must. This is a sentence – or non-sentence – that is “manifestly inadequate by acceptable community standards”.

A member of the little girl’s family said they had talked to somebody in the Department of Justice trying to get some justice, trying to get some explanation over how a serial molester of a little girl could escape jail.

They were told: “If we were to throw every single paedophile in jail our jails would be full”.

Explain that to an abused seven-year-old kid. Who’s looking after the children?

Monday, August 2, 2004

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2004