…or lets hope so, because it seems that the only way that you can educate some people/corporations/organisations is to punish them financially. In this post I highlighted the Queensland Catholic Education Office’s incompetence in failing to report to police, a teacher that went on to rape and molest 13 girls.
It seems that while the School principle got off* the diocese itself may face civil litigation.
The families of two children allegedly sexually abused at a southeast Queensland school will sue the Catholic church for failing to act on complaints.
The parents will seek unspecified damages from the Corporation of the Catholic Diocese of Toowoomba, the entity responsible for the school, and a third claim is also expected this week.
Lawyer Damian Scattini from Slater and Gordon, the firm representing the families, said they were devastated when a court last week cleared the school’s principal of failing to report the alleged abuse to police.
What was sad to hear was that parents of one of the victims have experienced little support from school and staff. Quite frankly if this is true, the staff of that school need remedial training in mandatory reporting, or maybe how to be compassionate human beings.
* What sort of person must you be to just pass on the complaint and not be concerned when nothing happens? You have a potential paedophile in your school, you report it to your superiors and just move on with your day? Personally if I had not heard anything back within a day I would be acting on the information.
Related posts:
- Inaction by Catholic Education responsible for child rape. Pretend for a moment that you are a Catholic School...
- Three heads roll in Toowoomba school rape case The Australian reports that: The school principal and two senior...
- Church admits liability in Toowoomba rape case Long time readers will remember me covering this horrible story...
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re: this and the God story.
Get over it now that the kids can have an opinion and the fact that they are better educated with instant access to critical opinions on all forms of fairy tales and myths. Had we continued with thinking like this and the 'ethos' of the catholic church (must keep secret the sexual abuses by our clergy, more focus on the money and on the sexual habits of every other individual on the face of the planet yet entirely unable to see the consequences of generations of this type of abuse on the entire global community.
The gods – they truly are crazy. Hoping to make it to an age of reason or at least some sexual maturity in those who proffer their form of religion as the salvation of humanity – we would have ended up with a society which was hell bent on making the sexual abuse of women and children an acceptable part of our community experience.
When you have been communicating for years with a non-existent entity you are bound to get into trouble with a few bits – shame of it is is that it affects the rest of us – perhaps Jonah (or A. Gonner) should have swallowed harder when he had the chance and that would have saved us all from the range of sexual abuses we have experienced.
Not wanting to put too much spin on it but when it takes 2000 years for some groups of these people to realise they they have not done too much for society in reality and that they should stand down from any form of influence until they can demonstrate that they know how to be appropriate human beings.
More forgotten Australians to add to the 2 million others directly affected. Kevin Rudd will be able to apologise for another segment when he feels the need to obtain the glory from the masses.
With such a broad litigation, I'm wondering if there will be any de-registrations – of any of the teachers who did know and who did nothing. Isn't that one of the consequences of not reporting that which is mandatory to report?
Registration of teachers being done by the state, not the Catholic school system…
Of course, it'd probably require pressure to be put on the Gov't to actually do what is supposed to be done.
Interestingly enough it seems that something of that sort has occurred, posting about it now
[...] may question if this is enough. Indeed one of my commenters in this post raised the possibility of deregistering any teaching staff involved Surely none of the three [...]
Amazing that church has the audacity to even ASK for abuse victims to sign confidentiality agreements… by definition this makes any settlement just 'hush money', judicially proscribed or otherwise. If it was a public school the Murdoch press would be unremitting in its prominence and criticism. They hammer PUBLIC schools and PUBLIC hospitals for errors and omissions, but when it's the private sector it all seems to be 'commercial in confidence' or something.
I don't really agree with the public/private point you are making, at least with regards to schools. When I went to a Catholic school for a few years and what I've heard since I left. I have found it was held to a higher standard then the public schools in the area. At one stage there was a "sex scandal" that rocked the place (no rape, only between students and it was a senior high school) teenagers have sex it is not news, but because it was a catholic school it was an issue.
I am not saying that there aren't serious problems in some institutions including the catholic school system, (I'm not Catholic), but I do think it's easy to focus too much on one group and forget that it happens elsewhere.
Hi Chris welcome to the blog.
I don't really agree with the public/private point you are making, at least with regards to schools.
While Peter offers no examples, do you have any that suggest that his claim may be wrong?
When I went to a Catholic school for a few years and what I've heard since I left. I have found it was held to a higher standard then the public schools in the area.
Ignoring for a minute that we are talking about just one example( I could counter with one of my owb involving my old school principle, who was knowingly employed as pedophile and given character references by the bishop). Do not religious and secular private schools hold themselves to higher standards? Is this part of the problem ie that they have reputations to protect.
but I do think it's easy to focus too much on one group and forget that it happens elsewhere.
I am aware that sexual abuse can happen in any institution. Do you not think that the Toowomba case was noteworthy considering
a) Mandatory reporting has been required for some time
b) that teachers have been trained in mandatory reporting for the last ten years
c) This is a catholic institution and by virtue of being exposed to litigation world wide, it might have something in place.
[...] //There was I suppose a very very slim possibility that the principle at the Toowoomba Catholic school and members Catholic Education office were out of their depth, not properly trained, unsupported by [...]
[...] When you enable rapists it might just hit you where it hurts… [...]