ACT Policing has launched, with some fanfare, an operation to investigate allegations of sexual abuse at institutions in Canberra as long ago as 1951.
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As part of the launch, an open letter was published online this week inviting individuals to report incidents of historical sexual abuse, whether as victims or witnesses to such crimes. The letter reassures potential complainants that their matters will be overseen by a "small team of highly trained members who have extensive experience in investigating historical sexual abuse matters".
Operation Attest, as it has been called, is the outcome of amendments passed in the ACT Legislative Assembly in October 2013 repealing two statutory limitation periods relating to certain historic sexual offences committed between 1951-85. Those amendments, in turn, are an outcome of revelations at the long-running Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that victims of abuse have frequently been prevented from pursuing criminal charges against their abusers by statutes of limitations in the states and territories.
In the ACT's case, criminal proceedings for some sexual offences, including indecent assault of a male, had to be started within 12 months of the alleged offence.
There are sound legal and moral reasons for having statutes of limitation on sex crimes, the main one being that where there is delay, "the whole quality of justice deteriorates". That is, memories fade, witnesses die or disappear, and documents are lost, meaning the prospects of a fair trial are considerably reduced. But as the proceedings of the royal commission have frequently demonstrated, many victims of institutional sexual abuse were rendered mute by the trauma of their abuse. Feelings of confusion, shame or embarrassment are common enough reactions in sexual abuse victims, but these can be crippling if the victims were juveniles, as so many were. Susceptibility to family pressure or threats of reprisal also tend to be more common among younger victims.
Because the royal commission was intended to highlight the injustices done to tens of thousands of people abused in institutional settings and to ensure, as far as possible, that such crimes are never repeated, it is appropriate that statutes of limitations have been lifted to enable adult survivors to seek justice if they want it. The Commonwealth has encouraged it, although the states and territories have needed little encouragement.
Police forces have been reasonably quick to fall into line with community expectations regarding legal redress, and this is particularly welcome. Many of the institutions of state were conspicuously absent when the worst excesses of institutional abuse were being committed. The police, as the instigators of the removal of children from their families, contributed to the potential for abuse in various state or church-run institutions. Indeed, in some circumstances, they concluded informal arrangements with the authorities running those institutions that were in direct conflict with legal requirements to report child abuse. Small wonder, then, that ACT Policing should opt to name its official investigation of sexual abuse complaints here in Canberra Operation Attest.
Society's attitudes to institutional care have changed markedly since the darkest days of abuse. Victims are now accorded sensitivity and respect, and many of the institutions under whose authority and auspices they were abused have made apologies and implemented new regimens for responding to allegations of abuse. That said, some victims maintain that certain institutions, the Catholic church among them, have yet to claim thorough ownership of their past crimes and misdemeanours. These have included keeping abuse cases in-house, downplaying their significance, and moving the perpetrators elsewhere when their positions became untenable. The attitude of some of Melbourne's orthodox Jewish community to abuse at Yeshivah College – the current focus of the royal commission – suggest that people continue to have difficulty confronting the wickedness of sexual abuse.
Whether all of those people who contact the team at Operation Attest obtain the justice they feel they are owed is to be doubted. The passage of time will make successful prosecutions difficult. But the fact that it is now open for victims to pursue justice and to not be blocked by institutional indifference and inappropriate laws, and to have their stories heard in the process, will give some recognition and comfort.
