‘No action required’: A historical pattern of inaction and discretion towards child sexual abuse in Queensland policing
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X19839281 |
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
‘No action required’:
A historical pattern
of inaction and discretion
towards child sexual abuse
in Queensland policing
Paul Bleakley
University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia
Abstract
Throughout much of the 20th century, the Queensland Police Force were led by an
administration of senior officers more engaged with corrupt practices than with the
prosecution of child sexual abuse. An unwillingness within the police force to take action
against suspected child sex offenders on many occasions could be perceived to obstruct
investigations and provide a layer of protection to this kind of criminal behaviour.
Examination of archival material suggests that Queensland police were motivated by an
anomic condition within the force that led to deviance from established social norms
governing attitudes towards child sexual abuse cases.
Keywords
Queensland, police, child abuse, discretion, sexual
In the decade in which former commissioner Terrence Lewis led the Queensland police
between 1977 and 1987, as well as in the years that immediately followed, a pervasive
culture of corruption that existed in the Queensland Police Force. It was revealed through
a comprehensive judicial inquiry in the late 1980s that criminal extortion tactics were
rampant during Lewis’s time leading the Queensland police. As a result of these revela-
tions, Lewis himself was removed from his position as Police Commissioner and, later,
sentenced to a term of imprisonment on corruption charges (Condon, 2015). While the
allegations directed at Lewis focused primarily on his protection of vice operators, there
Corresponding author:
Paul Bleakley, University of New England, Library Road, Armidale, New South Wales 2351, Australia.
Email: pj.bleakley@gmail.com
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
2020, Vol. 93(2) 109–130
ªThe Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0032258X19839281
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is evidence to suggest that the misconduct he presided over carried across into the
investigation of child sexual abuse. In many ways, the failure of Queensland police to
take decisive action in this area can be viewed as an expression of Durkheim’s anomie,a
condition of normlessness that is formed in contexts where there exists mismatch
between wider social standards a nd those of a specific socio-cultu ral subpopulation
(Durkheim, 2003). Police culture has proven to be particularly prone to developing a
state of anomie: as a profession in which organisational culture is strong enough to force
the identity of police officer to become an individual’s master role, the opportunity exists
for police norms to supplant general social norms and create an anomic mismatch (Arter,
2007; Kleinig, 1996). In spite of widespread social condemnation of child sexual abuse
in the community, the anomic conditions of Queensland policing led it to become an
accepted norm to not take investigations into these crimes seriously in the late 20th
century.
Organisational pressures to not proactively investigate child sexual abuse allegations
is no doubt a dereliction of duty. However, there is reason to believe that even more
explicit interventions regularly took place in cases involving prominent people who were
accused of sexual offences against minors. Allegations that police officers were com-
plicit in the protection of child sexual offenders are not restricted to Queensland: in
Australia, the Wood Royal Commission in 1996/97 revealed corrupt relationships
between police and serial paedophiles, while the 2015 Royal Commission into Institu-
tional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse revealed systemic failures in the investigation
and prosecution of such crimes nationwide (Coate and Murray, 2015). These revelations
are just one regional example of a global trend toward the reinvestigation of historical
sexual abuse. In recent terms, the prominent focus on this kind of investigation can be
traced back to the public outcry that took place in the aftermath of the revelations in 2002
that the Catholic Church in the United States of America systemically protected priests
accused of child sexual abuse (Frawley-O’Dea, 2004). In the United Kingdom, a series
of cases in which prolific child sexual abuse had gone unpunished was followed by the
formation of Operation Fairbank in 2012; this special taskforce investigated allegations
that the Metropolitan Police obstructed child sexual abuse cases that invol ved other
officers or prominent public figures (Grierson, 2015). In each of these cases, concerns
have been raised in relation to the anomic organisational culture that allows for such
behaviour to occur. Given the serious nature of child sexual abuse allegations, the
decision not to investigate and obtain justice for vulnerable victims can only be
the result of a police culture that is fundamentally in a state of anomic conflict with the
wider community.
Queensland provides a strong model of this kind of anomic organisational culture that
can be applied to alternative contexts around the world which have experienced similar
cases in which child sexual abuse has been systemically tolerated over a long period. In
several Queensland cases involving accusations against police officers, the decision that
no further action would be taken was traced back to intervention by some of the most
senior officers in the Queensland Police Force. In the case of prominent police officer
David Moore, the Queensland Police Force’s reluctance to mount a thorough investiga-
tion allowed Moore to continue offending for more than two years (Garrahy, 1984).
While Moore’s case was particularly notorious, it is also indicative of a broader
110 The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles 93(2)
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