In Plain Sight report released

The Child Death Review Board (the Board) has completed its review into system responses to child sexual abuse in Queensland.

In Plain Sight is the product of a 12-month review completed by the Board. The review examined system responses to child sexual abuse, with a focus on the early childhood education and care sector, police services, and the blue card system, using the matter of Ashley Paul Griffith as a case study.

It was the broadest review of Australia’s response to child sexual exploitation since the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and it was the first of its type in Queensland.

The report is titled In Plain Sight because those who seek to harm children are too often operating openly in our community, visible to systems, neighbours and institutions, yet unseen for who they truly are and for the risk they pose to children.

The review was built on extensive research; sector engagement; national legislative mapping; and advice from experts including Bob Atkinson AO APM, Hetty Johnston AM, Jon Rouse APM, Conrad Townson, Alison Geale, the Daniel Morcombe Foundation, victim-survivors, and national and international child safeguarding bodies.

The review team gathered extensive evidence and information throughout the review period.

Key findings

1. The offending could and should have been detected and disrupted earlier. 
   Across organisations and agencies, sufficient concerns were recorded to have enabled earlier intervention had they been consolidated and treated as part of a broader safeguarding picture. Instead, information remained siloed, and the warning signs were never fully connected.
2. Parents, children and staff repeatedly raised legitimate concerns, but no obvious resolution followed. 
   The offender was apprehended only after uploading digital images, not because of any effective response to the concerns that adults and children legitimately expressed.
3. Our prioritisation of criminal justice responses means we are focused on detecting crimes rather than detecting safety threats to our children. 
   Consequently, opportunities to intervene are lost. Victim-survivors and their families were left with no pathway to resolve their concerns once police determined there was insufficient evidence to proceed.
4. Police thresholds for action, combined with resourcing limitations, further inhibited earlier detection and contributed to missed opportunities. 
   This left children unprotected and families unsupported, effectively closing the door on concerns despite the potential for ongoing risks.
5. The blue card system functioned as intended yet offered no meaningful protection to children. 
   At all times of his offending, the offender was entitled to, and eligible for, a blue card. The gap between the legal operation of the blue card system and community expectations of its protective factors means that trust is mislaid.
6. At the organisational level, actions were taken in isolation often resulting in the offender being ‘moved on’ rather than the risks he posed being systematically addressed, recorded and communicated. 
   Such responses delivered no strategic or holistic benefit to the community and, critically, did not safeguard children.
7. The legislative and policy framework is itself fragmented. 
   There is no clear single owner of child safeguarding in Australia or Queensland, and the response remains overly dependent on the criminal justice system and child welfare system, with a significant gap between the two.
8. Public submissions underscored the absence of a clear pathway to raise concerns and receive services for suspected child sexual abuse. 
   This evidence made it clear that there is a clear gap when neither police nor the Department of Child Safety are involved. This vacuum leaves families and organisations without a protective mechanism and children at continued risk.

Recommendations

The Board makes 28 recommendations to strengthen child safeguarding in Queensland (p.482–491).

The recommendations focus on improving leadership, institutional and organisational practice, responses to victim-survivors; strengthening intelligence gathering and actioning; building community awareness around child sexual abuse; and reforming the criminal justice system. 

The complete set of recommendations are detailed from page 482 in the report.

1. Empowering better collation of integrated intelligence below the criminal justice threshold in a way that enables and authorises civil law to develop and deliver threat assessments
   • Transformational Recommendation 3: Create Child Safeguarding Intelligence Hub
2. Provide a central point of accountability for proactively seeking intelligence, developing the integrity of the integrated intelligence hub, and pushing information to the police, regulators and organisations that are required to act
   • Transformational Recommendation 9: Establish a safeguarding entity
3. Lifting the safety of children as a primary issue within the mechanics of government
   • Transformational Recommendation 8: Establish robust and centralised national and state governance for child safeguarding
4. Strengthening the obligations on organisations to detect, prevent and respond to threats of child sexual abuse before they occur
   • Transformational Recommendation 2: Preventing threats to children from entering the workforce
   • Transformational Recommendation 5: Strengthen child safeguarding duties and introduce corporate and personal accountability and liability for the safety of children
5. Improving the response to children who have been offended against, and their families
   • Transformational Recommendation 6: Improved interviewing and responses when victim-survivors present
   • Transformational Recommendation 7: Increasing the rights of child sexual abuse victim‑survivors in cases of child exploitation material
6. Improve worker and community awareness of child sexual abuse, grooming and the likelihood of threats
   • Transformational Recommendation 1: Create a national child safeguarding training program
   • Operational Recommendation 2: Invest more in workforce capability for child safeguarding
   • Operational Recommendation 3: Sustained investment in capacity building and community awareness
   • Operational Recommendation 14: Empowering parents through resources, awareness and education