Dr WOODRUFF - On page 9 of volume 2 of the commission of inquiry report, the commissioners note that they received accounts of organised abuse. By that, they mean multiple paedophiles conspiring to sexually abuse children. That was beyond their capacity and scope to investigate. They sent it on to Tasmania Police to investigate.
Can I confirm from the commissioner, deputy commissioner, whether those matters are being investigated and whether you intend to make a public statement on the conclusion of an investigation to provide some advice and closure to the community?
Mr HIGGINS - Yes, I personally met with the three commissioners when it was spoken about publicly but before the actual release. I did that with Assistant Commissioner Bodnar. Commissioner Benjamin in particular had had done a lot of one-on-one conversations with people. He thought they were 'groupings' of people. Whilst there was no actual evidence that was in there, from his considerable experience, not only as assistant commissioner, but in the family law court as well, he thought these groupings might be within sporting groups, whether it was in health, in different components. That is still being reviewed by the Family Sex and Violence Command. There has been nothing as yet to indicate an organised child abuse ring operating in any one of those circumstances.
There were some names that were across a number of them. Whilst it was outside the remit of the commission of inquiry because it was outside the institutional settings, there was certainly a conversation that was important enough for the three commissioners to want to have a one-on-one with me to go through that and give me the understanding about where the information had come from, how it had come about, and his reasons for doing the type of grouping so we could look at it. It is absolutely being taken seriously. Each individual is being assessed about what information there might be and we will ensure we fully investigate each one.
Dr WOODRUFF - Will there be a sort of an ongoing investigative taskforce set up to look at organised child sexual abuse? As a member of parliament, I am still hearing rumours and very concerning speculations. Things I have spoken about in parliament before in relation to James Griffin and allegations of a paedophile ring that used to meet regularly at the Launceston General Hospital and the connections between Police Officer Reynolds, Deloraine and around Launceston. How do we track this? I will not repeat it now, but there is more current information and I will talk to you offline about it.
It is extremely concerning. Paedophiles are getting smarter and they do work together. Is there a commitment to have some sort of focus in an ongoing way?
Mr HIGGINS - Through you, minister, absolutely a commitment to do that. Whilst it is not a taskforce, our new Family, Sex and Violence Command, which has only been in place since July, has the specialist sex crime investigators to do this and they are doing this. They are investigating these matters and any matter. If you have any information, please pass it on to me and I will ensure that it goes to the Sex Crime Units to follow it up.
Dr WOODRUFF - Okay, I will do that then.
Ms ADAMS - Some of the additions to that command that we didn't previously have - analysts. We are actually able to join information that may be irrelevant to somebody else, but we have that analytical capability and we also now have the two Australian Federal Police officers that are involved in child exploitation investigations. They are connected in that command. They are valuable additions which allow us to build a profile of concern and information.
We have the capability to continue to monitor people about whom we have concerns. It is absolutely a commitment to rid our community of these despicable individuals.
