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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-07-23 Daily Xml
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EASLING, MR T.

The Hon. R.D. LAWSON (15:32): I want to speak on the case of Tom Easling. The sexual abuse of children is a scourge that has long flourished under a shroud of secrecy and shame. I welcome the fact that the shroud has been removed and the voices of victims are now being heard and perpetrators brought to justice. Persons accused of these offences are being vilified. Opportunist politicians, however, seek to exploit the fears of parents and grandparents that their children and grandchildren will be victims, and some of these politicians seek to lead the chorus.

It is often forgotten that there are two pillars of any law and order policy: one is that the guilty be punished, but the second, equally important, is the presumption of innocence and that those who are not guilty are not vilified and punished. The case of Tom Easling provides a graphic illustration of how the presumption of innocence has been trashed under the Rann Labor government.

Late last year Mr Easling was acquitted by a jury of several counts of sexual assault against youths. Mr Easling was a former foster carer. He is a constituent of the member for Davenport, the Hon. Iain Evans, who yesterday called upon the government to establish a judicial inquiry into Mr Easling's case. The Hon. Mr Evans has very good grounds for calling for such an inquiry, and I certainly strongly support him in that effort.

The following aspects of Easling's case demand investigation. First, there are the circumstances of his arrest at dawn on Saturday 31 July 2004. This arrest was carefully stage managed. When police arrived at dawn at Mr Easling's house, would you believe that the Channel 7 News camera was already conveniently set up, ready to film these dramatic events?

Indeed, The Advertiser that very day, printed the previous night, had predicted this arrest. So, clearly there were people within the police service or within Families SA, which I will come to in a moment, who had tipped off the press about this arrest. That was a shameful breach of confidence, designed to prejudice a trial and designed to engender hostility towards a person who was being charged with an offence but who at that time was entitled to the presumption of innocence. We all know that is the method used by corrupt police in the United States. We do not want to see it introduced here.

The investigations which led to Mr Easling's arrest were conducted by the Special Investigation Unit within Families SA. There is no doubt that the investigation it undertook was flawed in very many respects. The investigators had very limited experience in the specialised field of interviewing witnesses in child sexual cases. They offered inducements to witnesses for testimony, including offering a mobile phone and cash. They commenced interviews without switching on the tape recorder for an hour and, indeed, up to an hour and a half. They did not use a video recorder, which they should have and could have.

They shredded their notes. They led witnesses shamelessly. They interviewed witnesses without having independent observers present, as is required under South Australian legislation. They implied that victims should be entitled to some large monetary compensation. The complainants gave evidence which, if the investigators had checked properly, simply was not credible. They alleged things that had happened at times when they could not possibly have happened, etc. It was a shoddy investigation.

The shame of it was that Mr Easling had to face a trial, a very expensive trial, that went for three months, and the case, which never should have been assembled, had to be drawn apart limb by limb. This case demands an immediate independent judicial inquiry into the way in which it occurred so that others do not suffer the same fate.

Time expired.

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