Senior Rabbi Calls for Rethink on Controversial Adass School Principal
Adass Israel School in Elsternwick, where Malka Leifer was principal from 2003 to 2008. Photo: Pat Scala
The most powerful rabbi in Australia's most secretive ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has taken the extraordinary step of intervening in the appointment of controversial rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant as principal of Adass Israel School.
In a rare move from the leader who scarcely weighs in on high-profile issues, Rabbi Avrohom Zvi Beck has released a letter to community members calling for more consultation on the appointment.
"I think it appropriate that we should consult with the members of our community on this matter," wrote the rabbi in a letter sent out days after Rabbi Kluwgant was given the role.
"Let a general meeting be arranged, and may the Lord bring us success in the endeavour."
Rabbi Beck is the most senior figure in the deeply hierarchical community, with oversight over every element of the community, including the school.
His intervention follows calls from child abuse victims to reconsider the appointment, after Rabbi Kluwgant was exposed in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse last year for calling the father of Yeshivah College abuse victim Manny Waks a "lunatic" who neglected his children.
Another victim told the commission that Rabbi Kluwgant discouraged him from reporting abuse to police. (Rabbi Kluwgant claims he did not know the person was a victim at the time.)
Former Principal wanted of 74 CSA charges
The school first courted controversy in 2008 after former principal Malka Leifer flew to Israel in the middle of the night after she was accused of abusing students. She is now in Israel fighting her extradition to Australia, where she is wanted on 74 charges of child sexual abuse.
It can also be revealed that teachers at the school are preparing to write a letter to the school council opposing the decision.
One staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said: "Everyone is really angry, in disbelief, shocked, sad, it's a big blow."
"We don't want to stand by, we want to do something but teachers are fearing that they will lose their jobs, there is a culture of quiet."
The extradition of Ms Leifer has been the most high-profile scandal to engulf the community.
One of the former principal's alleged victims, Dassi Erlich, was awarded more than $1 million in damages for the sexual abuse she suffered.
In the landmark Supreme Court decision, Justice Jack Rush found the school helped Ms Leifer leave the country and "was likely motivated by a desire to conceal her wrongdoing".
In a Facebook post addressed to the members of the Adass school board, Ms Erlich wrote: "In 2000 you hired Malka Leifer. It was a mistake, although you could not have known it then. I implore you, please do not make the mistake of hiring Rabbi Kluwgant.
"It's my hope you will reconsider this decision for the sake of the survivors and all the students at your school."
Manny Waks called the decision "outrageous and offensive" and said it "reinforces the perception that Adass does not take the issue of child sexual abuse seriously".
On Thursday last week, school board secretary Abe Weiszberger notified the community that Rabbi Kluwgant would be taking the role. "Rabbi Kluwgant comes to us with a wealth of experience in leadership and education," he wrote in a letter.
"After a global recruitment process, we have found him to be the most suitable candidate for the job. We have every confidence that Rabbi Kluwgant will be an immense asset."
Whitewash claims after key evidence in probe into sex abuse QC is kept secret
An investigation into sexual assault claims against the top lawyer at the Government’s child abuse inquiry was dismissed as a ‘whitewash’ yesterday after key evidence was kept secret.
The review was ordered last year after Ben Emmerson QC was accused in a BBC Newsnight programme of groping a member of staff at the headquarters of Britain’s biggest public inquiry.
Mr Emmerson, who quit the inquiry last September, was cleared of wrongdoing three months later following a secret probe commissioned by Matrix Chambers, the law firm he co-founded.
Well, quelle surprise! Imagine his own law firm finding him innocent?
Stung by criticism of a cover-up, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse then launched its own review, hiring Mark Sutton QC to look at ‘the events surrounding the resignation’ of Mr Emmerson from the £100million probe.
Yesterday – after a seven-month investigation thought to have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds – Mr Sutton announced that he couldn’t say if the allegations against the top human rights barrister were true or false.
He said the accused’s own chambeiesrs had refused to release its secret report on the affair, adding: ‘I therefore have no knowledge of the scope of the investigation... or the findings which underpinned [the] ultimate conclusions.’
And you got paid for this?
Yesterday Lisa Nandy, an MP who has campaigned for greater openness, dismissed the report as a ‘whitewash’.
She added that four victims’ groups had deserted Britain’s biggest public inquiry after it was beset by a series of crises.
Last year a Commons committee said the inquiry’s handling of sexual assault and bullying allegations on its premises had been ‘inadequate’.
But yesterday the Sutton review concluded the response to the allegations had been ‘appropriate’.
Mr Emmerson declined to comment yesterday, and has refused to comment on his resignation. An IICSA spokesman said the cost of the Sutton review would be published in due course.
Social worker who accused garda whistleblower of sex abuse joins inquiry
Seán McCárthaigh Senior Ireland News Reporter
The Times
The tribunal is examining if senior gardaí set out to smear the character of Sergeant Maurice McCabe
LAURA HUTTON/PHOTOCALL IRELAND
A social worker who mistakenly recorded that a garda whistleblower had seriously sexually abused a child will be one of the first witnesses at the disclosure tribunal when the inquiry begins public hearings of evidence today.
The tribunal is examining whether senior gardaí set out to smear the character of Sergeant Maurice McCabe after he had raised cases of poor policing performance. It is due to hear from the counsellor who met the alleged victim in the case. Laura Brophy, who works with Rian, an HSE counselling service, will face questions over how she came to wrongly record in a file in August 2013 allegations that Sergeant McCabe had sexually abused a girl.
The false accusations were sent to gardaí, notified to Tusla, the child and family agency, and wrongfully put to Sergeant McCabe in December 2015 when Tusla officials were aware that there was no basis to the allegations.
The allegations that the garda whistleblower had sexually assaulted the daughter of a friend in his family home in 1998 were first reported by the girl in 2006. The matter was investigated at the time but the director of public prosecutions ruled in 2007 that no further action was required.
Ms Brophy has submitted a statement to the inquiry in which she claims that she made a genuine mistake when she used the template of a retrospective disclosure of abuse form relating to another of her clients.
She said she had failed to remove the section describing the abuse of the other victim and therefore did not record the actual, less serious allegations made by the girl about Sergeant McCabe.
It is understood that Ms Brophy only became aware of her error in May 2014 after the girl contacted her to have the record corrected after she had been contacted by gardaí about the case. She is expected to be asked about her efforts to correct the file.
The first section of the inquiry will concentrate on evidence relating to the file. It will also examine whether such false allegations were knowingly used by senior gardaí to discredit Sergeant McCabe.
In an opening statement last month, Diarmaid McGuinness, SC, counsel for the tribunal, said it may well be that Ms Brophy had made a mistake which had been compounded by further errors and omissions by Tusla personnel, despite her best efforts to rectify it. He said the inquiry had to examine if there had been “a deliberate attempt to keep matters live . . . when Sergeant McCabe was a household name and that the pursuit of this matter by state agencies was part of the overall aim of . . . destroying his reputation.” The hearing at Dublin Castle is set to begin this morning.
Former Kyneton priest Peter Waters charged over historical sexual abuse Tom Cowie
A former Catholic priest in central Victoria has been charged with more than 30 historical child sexual abuse offences.
Taskforce Sano detectives are investigating the accusations against former Kyneton priest Peter Waters, which are alleged to have occurred between 1973 and 1986.
The offences included indecent assault on males aged 12 to 19 and carnal knowledge of a girl aged 10 to 16 years old.
Mr Waters, 72, was parish priest at Kyneton during the 1990s.
The Phillip Island man will appear at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on August 18.
Jersey care abuse inquiry: Children 'still at risk'
Children may still be at risk in Jersey's care system, a report into seven decades of child abuse has found.
Live electrical wires were applied to children's legs, one survivor told the The Independent Jersey Care Inquiry.
Victims also reported being beaten with nettles, having their heads dunked in cold water and being sexually abused.
The States of Jersey had "proved to be an ineffectual and neglectful substitute parent", the report said.
Chief Minister, Senator Ian Gorst apologised and said: "We failed children who needed our care."
Jersey care home inquiry: Decades of abuse
Haut de la Garenne, Jersey
The inquiry, led by judge Frances Oldham QC, has recommended demolishing the Haut de la Garenne children's home, where much of the abuse took place.
Survivor Gifford Aubin who was at the home in the 1950s described his treatment: "They were putting these wires on your legs, that sort of thing...
"And also hitting you with a pre-war army stick, you know, like a sergeant major or officer would have. It had a metal end, so you can imagine how that cut into you."
He also suffered mental abuse from his experiences.
The inquiry, launched in 2014, heard 553 offences took place between 1947 and 2004, with more than half said to have occurred at Haut de la Garenne.
'Nightmares'
Jacky de la Haye was one of a handful of girls at the home and said she suffered psychological abuse.
"I have nightmares that I'm still there," she said.
While a lot of the inquiry focused on Haut de la Garenne, a number of other incidents, not previously revealed, came to light.
The revelations of assault, bullying and slavery at the Sacré Coeur Orphanage led to a fresh call for witnesses from the inquiry panel.
A witness, known as "Mrs A" said outside of school hours children were forced to work unpaid in a knitting factory run by the nuns at the orphanage.
In February 2015 one survivor known as "Witness D", now in his 40s, told the inquiry he was too scared to report the abuse he suffered to the authorities while he was at Haut de la Garenne.
He told the hearing he was sexually abused by two members of staff, William Gilbert and Phil Le Bais. They were never charged and have now died.
Former Haut de la Garenne resident, Gifford Aubin said a lack of staff meant older boys were often left in charge
Abuse reported by victims:
Being beaten with nettles as a punishment for bedwetting
Having their hair forcibly cut off
Having their mouths washed out with soap
Spending long periods in an isolation room
Having fat from a frying pan poured over them
Being punched and slapped
Being sexually abused
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