Corrected Christies Beach Court Case
26/07/2011
“Today’s Christies Beach Magistrates court case regarding school children allegedly sexually abused by a bus driver again exposed the many deficiencies in our justice system.
“Four charges against the driver were dropped today. The dropped charges relate to two specific children.
“This is a terrible injustice for those children and their families and reflects the inadequacies of our justice system when dealing with people who have disabilities.
“If the Government needed further evidence that the system is failing to protect people with disabilities then the horrendous stories of these children provides that. What we need now to ask is – how many of these stories will our Government need to hear before it moves to put better protections in place?
“The Education Minister Jay Weatherill, Minister for Police Kevin Foley and Attorney-General John Rau should immediately start making changes within their departments to address this child protection black hole.
“I was heartened to see that despite the charges relating to two children being dropped, other charges relating to other children have been added. While this will in no way compensate the families who won’t see justice done, we can still hope that the perpetrator will be punished.”
Note – A previous media release from Ms Vincent is attached. It contains details of some of the measures she is calling on the Minister for Education to implement.
