Predators lure kids from state system

A SENIOR member of Tasmania Police has described how vulnerable children are sometimes “lured” by predators away from the state’s outof-home care system.

Giving evidence on Thursday to Tasmania’s child sexual abuse commission of inquiry, assistant commissioner Jonathan Higgins agreed children in the state’s out-of-home care system were at increased risk of abuse – especially those who lived in group homes without a parental figure.

Assistant commissioner Higgins (inset) said group homes – overseen by a roster of staffers on shifts rather than carers or parental figures – could be breeding grounds for crime. “I have seen children in the out-ofhome care system, whether it’s foster care or group homes or otherwise … who are now in Risdon Prison or have served time for various crimes,” Assistant Commissioner Higgins said.

“In a group home setting with other youths that might not be able to go into foster care for a range of reasons, it … becomes almost a training ground.”

Also on Thursday, Kennerley Children’s Homes chief executive Andrea Sturges acknowledged child abuse had occurred within the organisation, in the past. “For some survivors, even hearing our name can be triggering … we failed children,” she said.

The organisation previously ran Kennerley Boys Home and Industrial School in Hobart and now runs foster care and other programs.

Ms Sturges said she’d had a “difference of opinion” with the Child Safety Service over whether some carers were suitable – but the Department of Communities hadn’t been persuaded there was an issue.

“What I heard anecdotally from other carers … was the fact they (the unsuitable carers) were having other children placed with them,” she said.

She said the department needed a formal deregistration process, where certain carers were barred from the system.