A senior executive at the Launceston General Hospital (LGH) has told a child abuse inquiry that she got most of her information about an investigation into paedophile nurse James Geoffrey Griffin from two podcasts.
WARNING: This article contains content that some readers may find distressing.
Tasmania's Commission of Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has been told this week of catastrophic failings at the hospital around its handling of Griffin and the aftermath of revelations about him.
Helen Bryan has given evidence at Tasmania's Commission of Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which is this week focusing on paedophile James Geoffrey Griffin, who was a nurse on the children's ward for almost two decades.
Ms Bryan is an executive director of nursing at the LGH.
She told the commission of inquiry she heard about Griffin in July 2019, when the executive director of medical services, Dr Peter Renshaw, told her that there was a police investigation into allegations that he was a paedophile.
Ms Bryan told the inquiry she agreed that it was a critical incident — the discovery a paedophile had been working on the ward for 18 years — but that it wasn't responded to, as such, and that she should have been actively involved, but wasn't.
She said she had been excluded from "multiple meetings".
"That doesn't dissolve my responsibility and accountability, and I accept that, and I would do things very differently if this happened tomorrow," she said.
"I do want to apologise that I didn't properly, or I committed to properly fulfil my full responsibilities, and I let others exclude me from the process."
Ms Bryan told the commission that Dr Renshaw took over the running of the hospital's response and review following the 2019 revelations about Griffin.
"I didn't see a report. I had no further input or feedback," she said.
"I got a lot of my information from the two podcasts that I listened to."
Journalist Camille Bianchi's podcast, The Nurse, was one of the catalysts for the commission of inquiry.
Ms Bryan conceded she should have sought out more information.
The chief executive of the hospital, Eric Daniels, told the inquiry that, when he found out about Griffin, he was out of his depth. He "unreservedly apologised" for the failings.
"I was not prepared for an event like this. I'd never encountered this problem previously and I don't think I was prepared to manage it effectively."
He told the commission that there had been catastrophic failures at the hospital over its handling of Griffin.
Complaints system inadequate
Another senior manager conceded that none of the hospital's complaints systems was adequate to identify child sexual abuse, and no one had had the training needed to identify such abuse or grooming.
Janette Tonks is the hospital's nursing and midwifery director of women's and children's services, and Griffin's direct manager reported to her.
The commission of inquiry has this week heard that were multiple reports and warnings given to Griffin about professional boundary breaches while he worked at the hospital.
Ms Tonks told the inquiry that reports could be made through a patient liaison complaint form, by going straight to the nurse unit manager or through a system called SLRS, which was designed for clinical safety reports.
However, she said, none of those systems could satisfactorily identify child sexual abuse, and there was no central repository to identify instances or potential flags for child sexual abuse or grooming at the hospital.
"Subsequently, I'm aware that none of us had any education and training in child sex abuse or grooming behaviours," Ms Tonks said.
Ms Tonks told the inquiry that she had not heard anything until this week about a 2011 report made to the hospital by Kylee Pearn, who earlier told the commission that she had warned the hospital that Griffin was a paedophile and had abused her.
Ms Bryan told the inquiry she also had not heard about Ms Pearn's report until today.
"That's absolutely unacceptable and … I should have known about it. I didn't know about it," Ms Bryan said.
The inquiry heard earlier this week that a nurse, Will Gordon, made a complaint about Griffin's behaviour with adolescent girls in 2017.
Ms Tonks told the inquiry that at the time, Griffin's manager, Sonja Leonard, spoke to her about the complaint and alerted her that there had been previous breaches of professional boundaries but didn't go into detail, and she didn't ask any questions about them.
The inquiry heard Mr Griffin was given a warning about boundary breaches.
Ms Tonks said she was happy at the time with how that complaint was dealt with.
"Now, I believe, I should have been more actively involved and provided more help to Sonja [Leonard] given she had no experience," she said.
Counsel assisting the commission Elizabeth Bennett asked Ms Tonks why no one had noticed that Ms Leonard was overwhelmed and under-trained on a ward that had a toxic culture.
"I would have been more than happy to provide her with any upskilling and education had I been alerted to that at the time," Ms Tonks responded.
Will Gordon went to the Integrity Commission in November 2019 to ask it to look into potential cover-ups and failures to report misconduct at the health service.
The head of the Integrity Commission, Michael Easton, looked into the complaint and it was sent back to the health department.
"This was a workplace in crisis," he told the commission.
"When we investigate it comes with a whole lot of baggage and branding and impact … we weren't convinced that … it was going to necessarily help anyone, and in fact it could further harm people."
Survivor warned police Griffin would take his own life
Griffin was charged after Tiffany Skeggs told police that she was abused by him from the age of 12 until her late teens.
He was later charged over the abuse of more children, but killed himself before he could be tried.
Ms Skeggs has spoken of her dismay at learning that he was being granted bail, despite her warnings that he was a risk and likely to take his own life.
"I cannot for the life of me fathom how anyone, whether it was the initial police bailing or the subsequent court bailing, could deem that he was safe to return to the community, that he didn't pose a risk to the community or children or his accusers and, more to the point, that he didn't pose a risk to himself," she said.
"I had made police aware. I had given them the evidence of his stating that, to quote his words, 'I'll f***ing kill myself before I go to prison', and they still released him."
Ms Skeggs told the inquiry that police had told her that Griffin had been "on their radar" for some time, and that they just needed someone such as her to come forward.
She said she had not been aware of Ms Pearn's report to the hospital and to police in 2011.
"It shouldn't have been up to her to protect herself and the rest of us," she said.
"She did her bit. She handed it over to the right people and they did nothing."
