A victim-survivor who was abused by notorious paedophile James Geoffrey Griffin has told Tasmania's commission of inquiry that when she finally built up the courage to go to police, they told her they "couldn't charge a dead person".
The Commission of Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in Government Institutions has spent the past week and a half examining the failings in the health system that allowed Griffin, a nurse in the children's ward at Launceston General Hospital, and other alleged abusers to go undetected for almost two decades.
Multiple women who were groomed and abused by Griffin have given evidence over the course of the hearings.
Angelique Knight is the latest.
Ms Knight was 14 when she met Griffin during one of her stays at the children's ward at the Launceston General Hospital (LGH).
She told the commission she initially "hated him".
Ms Knight told the commission her mother made a complaint to the nurse in charge and said Griffin was not to look after her again, but nothing really changed.
He soon became her nurse again.
"Eventually I started to like him. I guess he just had me fooled very easily. We became close," she said.
Ms Knight said the touching started immediately.
"He was always touching me, hugging me, touching my bum, always had his arms around me … even in corridors with other nurses around," she told the commission.
The touching eventually turned intimate.
She said staff at the hospital noticed, but no-one suggested it was inappropriate.
Reporting the abuse left her feeling worse
When Ms Knight got married in 2009, Griffin was supposed to give her away.
"It was planned for a long time. He was excited, he was over the moon," she told the commission.
"A week before something happened and he was told it was inappropriate and he couldn't give me away at my wedding … he became my emcee."
By this stage, Ms Knight was in her late 20s.
"I always just thought it was just me. If I had of said something when it started it could've stopped."
Ms Knight told the commission she found out about Griffin's death and his offending through the media.
She then went to police to report her abuse, but the reception she got left her feeling worse.
"It took a lot for me to go in there. When I went in there I spoke to a lady … [she] spoke to a police officer and came back to me pretty quickly and said, 'sorry there's nothing we can do. We can't charge a dead person but sorry this happened,'" she told the commission.
"I didn't feel like I was heard or anyone even acknowledged what happened."
'I felt really ashamed'
Ms Knight said she then tried to contact the hospital and sent an email to the executive director of medical services, Peter Renshaw.
"I got a reply back the next day. It seemed very generic, a basic email that he's probably sent everybody that sent him an email — that's how it felt anyway," she said.
Ms Knight said she even reached out to then-premier Peter Gutwein, but she did not find his response satisfactory.
But Ms Knight said she felt let down by his response.
"I got back a basic email I feel he didn't write … later learning of his own situation. I felt really disgusted," she said.
Prior to his quitting politics, Mr Gutwein in March revealed he was a victim of child sexual abuse.
"I felt really, really ashamed like there was just no-one there wanting to support me at that time."
Ms Knight was eventually able to find support through Victims of Crime, who helped her make a statutory declaration to police.
"I feel like I needed to do that for me to accept, to cut myself a break because it just felt like it was consuming, so being able to talk it out and put it out there made a big impact on my life," she said.
'Can you please be discreet?'
As for the LGH, Ms Knight, who suffers from complex health issues, cannot escape it.
She was back there just last week where she watched the commission as it revealed the multitude of failings within the hospital.
Ms Knight said as she was watching, the head of nursing came up to her, asking she "be discreet" as she had to support her workers as it "affects them as well".
"No consideration to whether it impacted me … I did tell her I was speaking this week. No, acknowledgement or, 'I'm sorry', it was just, 'can you please be discreet'.
"I just felt ashamed really, like what I had to say no-one wanted to hear."
Ms Knight said no-one from the LGH had apologised for or acknowledged the abuse she suffered.
"It wouldn't change anything for me but it would go a long way in knowing someone is taking some responsibility for what happened because it was happening under their noses," she told the commission.
On Sunday — despite the commission's hearing still being underway — the Tasmanian government announced a review into management at the hospital, flagging the likelihood of "significant changes to leadership roles".
The commission is conducting hearings in Hobart and Launceston until August 19, with live streaming available.
