A high-ranking NSW public servant has admitted the state failed to protect Aboriginal children from horrendous abuse at a foster home it licensed. He has apologised for the state treating them badly when they asked for an apology and compensation.
Michael Coutts-Trotter, secretary of the NSW Department of Family and Community Services, said on Friday that major changes will be made to the department and its legal services after a review uncovered major failings in how allegations of abuse were handled at Bethcar children’s home in Brewarrina, in remote NSW.
The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse has heard over three days how the department failed to act to stop abuse when girls reported being raped and beaten in the 1980s.
It has also heard how 15 abuse survivors were put through legal hell by lawyers working for the Crown Solicitors Office in a long, drawn-out civil case, during which they were not believed and state liability was denied.
In a detailed apology, Coutts-Trotter, who has reviewed the handling of the case, said that “the terrible physical and sexual abuse inflicted upon children and young people by those entrusted to care for them has had devastating and lifelong impacts … .”
He said the state could have done more to protect the children at Bethcar once reports were made, and managed the civil litigation process better. He vowed root-and-branch change on both fronts, including the appointment of a senior counsel to oversee such litigation and reporting directly to the department secretary.
Coutts-Trotter said his review showed the departmental lawyers had drifted into a defensive and adversarial strategy without thinking through the fundamental issues.
“We had a responsibility to respond far more effectively and far more quickly than we did to the men and women of Bethcar … “.
He said the department and its legal service would form a view on what they were going to do within three months.
The hearing continues with Coutts-Trotter in the witness box.
The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse has heard over three days how the department failed to act to stop abuse when girls reported being raped and beaten in the 1980s.
It has also heard how 15 abuse survivors were put through legal hell by lawyers working for the Crown Solicitors Office in a long, drawn-out civil case, during which they were not believed and state liability was denied.
In a detailed apology, Coutts-Trotter, who has reviewed the handling of the case, said that “the terrible physical and sexual abuse inflicted upon children and young people by those entrusted to care for them has had devastating and lifelong impacts … .”
He said the state could have done more to protect the children at Bethcar once reports were made, and managed the civil litigation process better. He vowed root-and-branch change on both fronts, including the appointment of a senior counsel to oversee such litigation and reporting directly to the department secretary.
Coutts-Trotter said his review showed the departmental lawyers had drifted into a defensive and adversarial strategy without thinking through the fundamental issues.
“We had a responsibility to respond far more effectively and far more quickly than we did to the men and women of Bethcar … “.
He said the department and its legal service would form a view on what they were going to do within three months.
The hearing continues with Coutts-Trotter in the witness box.
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