Elderly sex offenders clog Australian jails, but struggle to find housing once released
RN By Alex Mann for Background Briefing
(ABC RN: Alex Mann)
In just five years, the number of prisoners over the age of 50 in Australian jails has grown by a third, placing a major strain on the prison system.
The growing number of infirm prisoners is stretching prison resources, and there are no specialised aged care providers for them when they've completed their sentences.
Older inmates present significant additional demands on already limited prison budgets. Many elderly prisoners present with dementia, have mobility issues and have complex health needs.
Traditional prison architecture is not designed to accommodate them, so prisons across the country are scrambling to adapt, often at huge expense.
Background Briefing gained exclusive access to the new state-of-the-art High Dependency Unit at Yatala Prison in Adelaide. The $14 million, 26-bed facility accommodates eight elderly prisoners — seven of whom were child sex offenders when Background Briefing visited.
The manager of the facility, Luke Williams, says many of the prisoners will be housed in the High Dependency Unit for long periods of time. "It's based on an assessment of their medical needs, and often these are chronic conditions that aren't going to improve," he said.
Older sex offenders a particular problem
The large number of convicted paedophiles in the Yatala High Dependency Unit is not an isolated case — 35 per cent of the prisoners in the over-50 age group are sex offenders.
Since the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse began four years ago, more than 2,200 cases have been referred to the authorities.
And with changes to sentencing laws, parole procedures and the lifting of the statute of limitations on historical child sexual offences, it's expected the number of elderly child sex offenders in prison will only continue to climb.
According to Leigh Garrett, the head of Adelaide's Offenders Aid and Rehabilitation Service, the criminal justice system has also got better at prosecuting people who've committed child sex offences.
"The number of reviews and royal commissions that we've had in this state and around the country has also provided opportunities for victims to come forward … in a spirit of safety, [and] tell their story, and that's often led to further prosecutions by police and courts," he said.
What happens when they're released?
Australia does not have specialist aged care providers for people who've committed serious criminal offences, and few private providers are keen to take them on. That leaves many older prisoners stuck inside long after their earliest release date, which in turn leaves prison hospitals to operate as proxy aged care providers.
In South Australia, there are currently 65 men older than 50 who are still in prison after their expected release date.
The state-of-the-art High Dependency Unit at Yatala houses eight elderly prisoners.
(ABC RN: Alex Mann)
It's an expensive way to care for the elderly, and it's pushing prison resources to the limit.
Mr Garrett, whose organisation tries to reduce the likelihood of reoffending, says the only thing worse than elderly sex offenders in aged care homes is elderly sex offenders who aren't in aged care homes.
"I for one am not sure that I want aged sex offenders not able to find adequate care and support in their elderly years," he said. "Because the potential for them reoffending becomes higher."
Minister says legal changes in the cards
Right now, ex-prisoners are not obliged to disclose their criminal history when making applications to aged care providers. But Federal Aged Care Minister Ken Wyatt believes the families of people in aged care deserve more protection.
"Fear is always a factor because you're always concerned about what might happen to family, but equally we've got an obligation to look at someone who is frail," he told Background Briefing.
Ken Wyatt says offenders should be forced to report their crimes to aged care providers.
(ABC News: Andrew O'Connor)
Mr Wyatt said while caring for sex offenders and other elderly ex-prisoners might be unpopular, the government has an obligation to look after all vulnerable Australians.
"It's a discussion that I'll be having with my aged care advisory body, but it'll also be a discussion that I'll have in the future with state ministers," he said.
The Aged Care Minister has called for a specialised aged care provider to be set up, to avoid serious ex-prisoners being housed in mainstream aged care. "We do it for other groups, and we do it for culturally and linguistically diverse groups," he said. "I see no harm in a provider specialising in looking after people who've had a life in prison."
Mother finds video of sexual abuse
on husband’s cellphone
STEVE BRUCE THE CHRONICLE HERALD
Halifax Provincial Court
It was a horrifying discovery for a mother to make.
A Halifax, Nova Scotia woman, suspicious that her husband was having an extramarital affair, went through the contents of his cellphone last month. What she found was a video of her 13-year-old daughter performing oral sex on him.
The woman called 911 immediately. A police officer and a Department of Community Services worker obtained a statement from the girl. She told police she had been abused by her adoptive father since the age of nine and that the activity included oral, vaginal and anal sex.
Police arrested the man as he was preparing to leave town. He had quit his job and sold gold jewelry to get cash.
Although the man didn’t confess to police, he admitted he was sorry for many things. He told officers he wanted his daughter, whom he adopted at the age of two, to know it was not her fault and that she should not feel any shame or guilt.
The name of the 35-year-old man cannot be published because of a ban on any information that would identify the victim.
He pleaded guilty Thursday in Halifax provincial court to charges of sexual assault, invitation to sexual touching and making child pornography, as well as two counts of violating a court order by phoning the family home from jail.
Defence lawyer Brad Sarson told the court his client recalls multiple incidents of oral sex but doesn’t remember the other events, probably because he was drinking to excess at the time.
“He maintains the complainant, his daughter, would not have made these allegations up,” Sarson said. “He’s prepared to be sentenced according to the facts relayed by the complainant.”
Judge Bill Digby accepted the guilty pleas and scheduled a sentencing hearing for December. He ordered a sexual offender assessment at the request of the Crown, plus a standard presentence report.
Outside court, Crown attorney Catherine Cogswell said she will wait to see those reports and do more research before finalizing her sentencing recommendation. “He’s definitely looking at a lengthy period of federal incarceration,” Cogswell said of the offender.
“These acts are very heinous and occurred over a long period of time with a very young victim.” She said the man has a lengthy criminal record but no previous sex-related convictions.
The lawyers have talked about a potential sentence, Cogswell said, “but I don’t think this is one of those cases where we’re going to have a joint recommendation.”
The prosecutor said it’s too early to know whether the victim will provide an impact statement to the court. She said she does expect submissions from the girl’s mother and other members of the family.
Cogswell said the mother has been co-operative with the authorities throughout and “had no qualms” about what she should do after she found the shocking video on her husband’s phone.
“I can’t imagine the devastation and pain that you would feel upon seeing something like that,” she said.
The man will remain in custody at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Dartmouth. The judge reminded him that he is to have no contact with his wife and children.
Halifax Regional District, N.S.
UN investigating leaked sex abuse complaints in
Central African Republic
Kieran Guilbert
DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The United Nations said on Thursday it was looking into allegations that complaints of sexual abuse and exploitation made against its peacekeepers in the conflict-torn Central African Republic were mishandled or unreported.
The U.N.’s 10,000-strong mission in Central African Republic (MINUSCA) has been dogged by accusations of sex abuse since it deployed in 2014 to curb fighting between mainly Muslim Seleka rebels, who had ousted the president, and Christian militias.
Internal U.N. case files handed to Code Blue - a campaign by a non-governmental organization seeking greater accountability for U.N. troops - detail 14 initial fact-finding inquiries into complaints made against MINUSCA peacekeepers from nine nations.
Under U.N. rules, peacekeepers are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the countries that sent them to serve abroad.
Yet the files - which were not seen by the Thomson Reuters Foundation - reveal that 10 of the 14 cases were handled only by U.N. personnel, without involvement of investigators from the accused soldiers’ home countries, and that in eight of the 14 cases, the alleged victims were not interviewed, Code Blue said.
“These 14 cases demonstrate that the U.N. filters reports of complaints, usually tossing them out before the matters ever reach the competent authorities from troop-contributing countries,” said Sharanya Kanikkannan, a lawyer with Code Blue.
“This filtering ensures that there is no access to justice for the vast majority of victims since they cannot gain access to law enforcement authorities without first convincing U.N. staff to believe them,” Kanikkannan added in a statement.
MINUSCA said in an email that it is “reviewing and will transparently report on allegations (made by Code Blue)... of unreported cases of sexual exploitation and abuse”. “MINUSCA has made the fight against sexual exploitation and abuse its core business,” said spokesman Vladimir Monteiro. “It recognizes that sexual exploitation and abuse cases have severely affected the mission’s credibility and reputation in the past,” Monteiro told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Following the MINUSCA response, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York late on Thursday that he did not believe the leaked files were a “representative sample”.
In December 2015, an independent review panel criticized the United Nations for grossly mishandling allegations of child sexual abuse and rape by international peacekeepers in 2013 and 2014 in Central African Republic, where heavy fighting wages on.
Thousands have died and a fifth of Central Africans have fled violence that broke out in 2013, with U.N. peacekeepers and national security forces struggling to contain ethnic violence which is stoking fears of a backslide to full-blown conflict.
Notts man jailed for six years for sexual abuse of a child
By WBWire -
A man has been jailed for six years after grooming a nine-year-old girl and sexually abusing her.
Graham Shelbourne, 52, of Newbery Close, Edwinstowe, befriended the girl and bought her gifts before sexually assaulting her, the court heard.
He was arrested on 30 April and charged with sexually assaulting a girl under 13 by touching, attempting to sexually assault a girl under 13 by touching and inciting a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity.
He denied the offences when he appeared at Nottingham Crown Court but was today (Thursday 14 September) found guilty following a four-day trial.
DC Kerry Peace, of Nottinghamshire Police’s Child Abuse Investigation Unit, said: “Nothing will ever make up for the abuse that Shelbourne’s victim suffered but hopefully she can take some comfort knowing that he has now been put behind bars.”
Problem is, with that soft sentence, she will still be a child when he is out of prison. Not a very good way of protecting kids or encouraging their recovery.
Former priest convicted of child sex offences
An Eastbourne man has been convicted of a series of sexual offences against two boys while he was an Anglican priest.
Jonathan Graves, 60, of Jervis Avenue, Eastbourne, who was a Church of England priest at the time of the offences, was convicted at Hove Crown Court yesterday (Thursday) after a nine-day trial.
Graves was convicted of a number of sexual offences against two boys known to him, while he was priest at St Luke’s Church at Stone Cross in the Diocese of Chichester; offences of indecent assault on a boy in the last 20 years; offences of indecency with that boy during the same period; two offences of cruelty against that boy over the same period; offences of indecent assault, and three of cruelty against another boy more than 20 years ago.
He will be sentenced at Brighton Crown Court on Monday.
He was found not guilty of three offences on the two boys and of an offence of indecent assault on a woman.
Detective Inspector Jon Gross said, “The past has caught up with Jonathan Graves. The evidence in this case has revealed how he used his position as a Reverend to select his victims and befriend them before callously abusing them for his own sexual gratification.
His crimes have had a lasting impact upon those he abused. The hurt caused by the sexual abuse itself has undoubtedly been compounded by the psychological scars of the abuser being a trusted, and influential figure in each of the victims’ lives.
“I have enormous admiration for the courage the victims have shown in coming forward to the police, and for remaining steadfast in seeing this matter through to conclusion. I hope these verdicts bring some form of closure to them."
“I am also grateful to all those who have supported the police investigation and whose testimony contributed to a successful prosecution of these despicable offences.” Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss looked into the case of Jonathan Graves in 2010 as part of a review for the Diocese of Chichester looking at previous concerns about several priests. The report was sent to Sussex Police in 2011.
Following a review of all information held by the Diocese on the cases covered, the force began an investigation, Operation Perry, and Graves is the third and last of the priests to be convicted.
The two other clergy, Robert Coles and Gordon Rideout, have already been convicted in separate trials and sentenced to terms of imprisonment.
The Diocese of Chichester co-operated fully with the police throughout Operation Perry, and the Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser was a member of the Operation Perry Investigative Management Group.
Call for inquiry into alleged sex abuse at
Limerick school in 1950s
Anne Sheridan
PENSIONERS who claim they were sexually abused as children by a teacher at a Limerick school, whom they describe as a “monster”, have called for an inquiry into why he has not been prosecuted.
Five complainants, now aged in their early 70s, provided written statements to gardai outlining allegations of sexual abuse and physical assaults by a teacher, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in Limerick city in the late 1950s.
The teacher later went on to become principal of a school in the Mid-West and has since retired.
One of the complainants has since passed away and another is in ill health. A fifth made allegations of physical but not sexual assault.
Two of the alleged victims are now urging the Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan to conduct an inquiry into the case, after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) directed that no prosecution be brought.
They said they were left “devastated” when they learned of the DPP’s decision in 2012, and want “justice to be served before we die, or he [the teacher] dies.”
The men are now seeking a new investigation by a different Garda division, and have also queried what “specific recommendations” were sent by gardai in Limerick along with the file to the DPP.
“I feel that something extraordinary happened with this case; that a massive injustice was done to us. I have repeatedly asked them for this injustice to be put right. What is the point of being Minister for Justice if they can’t administer justice?” one questioned.
One of the complainants, who has written in excess of 20 letters to various authorities on the case, said he feels that each authority contacted has “hidden behind a veil of confidentiality”.
In his statement to gardai, which was taken at Mayorstone garda station in Limerick on July 8, 2011, the complainant outlined that his teacher would sit beside him and ask him to show him his homework.
“When he would sit down beside me, he would put his hand up my shorts and touch my penis. He would masturbate me for maybe five or so minutes while pretending to be watching me do sums or show him my homework,” he alleged.
“I was afraid to say anything. This was a regular occurrence and he would do this to me very often, sometimes day after day. He would move around the class and do the same to other boys immediately after leaving me. He was also very violent and would beat us for the smallest reason.
“He also used a leather strap. I don't know how many times he assaulted me sexually but it lasted as long as I was in his class. I never really spoke to any of the boys in the class about it.
“We were terrified of him. I can remember the air of fear that would come over the class when he entered the classroom and the relief when he left the room,” he told gardai.
He said he eventually decided to make an official complaint – decades later - “because this has played on my mind all my life." “As a result of what happened me I was very careful and anxious in the upbringing of my own children. I didn’t trust anybody really since that happened to me.”
In an additional statement to gardai at Mayorstone in November 2011, he was asked why he hadn't made a complaint earlier. He said that he was not aware his former teacher was still alive, met him and “confronted him about what he had done to me.”
An official with Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald’s office wrote to him this March and again in April, stating that the minister “appreciates the very serious nature of the matters, which you raised and is conscious of the trauma suffered by victims of sexual offences.
An Tánaiste is the deputy head of government of Ireland and the second-most senior officer in the Government of Ireland.
“She has asked me to convey her sincere sympathy in relation to your experiences,” it read.
The Tanaiste’s office stated that it has “no role in the investigation, prosecution or trial of alleged offences and it is not open to her to intervene in individual cases. It is the Tanaiste’s legal position, rather than a lack of empathy on her part, that prevents her from intervening in the manner you are seeking,” states the letter.
Chief Superintendent Dave Sheahan, head of the Limerick garda division, outlined that complaints were made by three men in June, July and November 2011. A fourth complainant was later identified and a formal criminal complaint of sexual assault from that person was included in the investigation.
A fifth complainant was also identified and that person alleged physical assault, but not sexual assault, claiming that he and others in the class were beaten with “leathers, drumsticks and the legs of chairs.”
Chief Supt Sheahan, in a letter sent to one of the complainants, said the suspected offender was interviewed on two separate occasions, and during the course of the investigation, legal and procedural guidance was sought from and provided by the State solicitor for Limerick city.
He said the file was sent with “specific recommendations” to the office of the DPP, which is standard practice. Chief Supt Sheahan said he is “unaware of the reasons” why the DPP directed that no prosecution be issued, and said disclosing or withholding such reasoning is a matter solely for the DPP.
Chief Supt Sheahan said school records for the period were obtained and examined, “but such records were in poor condition.” One of the alleged victims who has obtained the same records strenuously rejects this. He said that the documents are clearly legible and could help identify all pupils in the class, whom he feels should have been contacted by gardai as part of their investigation.
But Chief Supt Sheahan said that gardai "for reasons of sensitivity, will not approach any suspected, alleged or possible victim of sexual abuse without an initial direct approach being made by that person to gardai. The principal objective of An Garda Siochana’s position is to ensure that no further stress or pain is caused by Garda actions,” wrote Chief Supt Sheahan.
He outlined that he could make a formal complaint to the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission, but when the complainant took this option he said he was informed by that office that is was too late to do so.
The Director of Public Prosecution’s office, in correspondence to one of the alleged victims, stated that it would not be appropriate to discuss in detail the material furnished by An Garda Siochana to its office. “It would, in any event, serve no useful purpose. The file was considered when initially submitted and a decision made not to prosecute.”
The DPP’s office outlined that the file was further reviewed in 2012 and again in November 2015.
The office acknowledged that the decision must be “disappointing and upsetting”, but stressed that the decision was “only made after careful consideration of all the available evidence.”
Ireland is light-years behind the western world in its treatment of child sex abusers and survivors.
One of the complainants has initiated High Court proceedings for damages against his former teacher, but said he does not have the finances to advance his claim through the court. He is seeking damages for allegations of sexual assault, child sex abuse, assault, false imprisonment, inflection of emotional suffering, psychological injuries, nervous shock and other damages.
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