Paedophile wanted to ‘care’ for teens

JIM Griffin was always eager to put up his hand to “care” for teenage girls at Launceston General Hospital’s paediatric ward.

He was especially keen whenever the girls had mental health issues, eating disorders, or long-term chronic illness.

“The response was always ‘that’s just Jim’,” nurse Maria Unwin said.

Ms Unwin worked with the serial paedophile nurse from when he started on the children’s 4K ward during 2021.

While in charge on shifts, Ms Unwin started to feel “uncomfortable” with Griffin, saying she had “an uneasy gut feeling”.

“He had a strong preference to care for teenage girls when it came to patient allocation,” she told the child sexual abuse commission.

“He’d be very quick to put his hand up and say ‘I’ll take them’, especially young girls with mental health issues or eating disorders or other long-term chronic illness, and sometimes younger children as well with complex backgrounds or illnesses.” Ms Unwin said Griffin liked to develop “a new best friend kind of relationship” with his young patients.

She said even though she had concerns, she felt she didn’t have a clear complaint to lodge with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.

Instead, she tried to allocate the patients he’d be interested in to other staff members. Griffin wasn’t pleased.

Once he made eye contact with Ms Unwin, “a very intimidating glare, as if to say ‘why did you do that?’.”

“He confronted me in the small kitchen … and said ‘why won’t you let me look after them? Have I done something wrong?’,” Ms Unwin told the inquiry.

“I felt intimated … I responded with something like, ‘it’s somebody else’s turn today’.”

She said concerns were raised with her manager, but “dismissed”.

“There was a strong group of staff who really admired Jim. He was extroverted and confident, he was very friendly,” she said.

“(Whenever I raised) my concerns with Jim, that something doesn’t quite seem right, the response was always ‘that’s just Jim’. There was that support and that acceptance.”

Ms Unwin said coming forward put her career in the Tasmania Health Service at “very real risk” in being considered for future positions.

“In the end, I decided that I needed to do it for the victims and the families,” she said.