Andrew L. Urban.
Noel Greenaway and Frank Valentine were both, at different times, child welfare officers at the Parramatta Training School for Girls (GTS), back in the 60s and 70s, a place for troubled and troublesome young teenage girls, generally around 14-15. Decades later, some of the former inmates responded to the promptings of lawyers, media and politicians, to come forward and make allegations of sexual and physical abuse against these two men, the only surviving male staff from those years. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2013-2017) was all ears. As were the police and later the courts. All they had to do was make their claims, which until then they had never mentioned to anyone. Corroboration was not required. Both men were found guilty of a number of the charges – no surprise.
We reported extensively on both cases and I published a book on each: Presumption of Evil (Greenaway) and Guilty by Say-So (Valentine). The reports can be accessed from the menu at the right of this page.
In April 2015, eight months before Frank Valentine would be interviewed by police and four years before his 2019 trial, Maris Valentine BA completed a thorough report exposing flaws in the relevant processes of the Royal Commission. Maris is a former District Officer of the Department of Child Welfare, having been employed on three separate occasions between 1967 and 1989 and with considerable experience dealing with sexually abused girls – and often their abused mothers. She lived in at GTS Parramatta for a week as part of the Residential Care component of the District Officers’ Training Course in 1967 and was a frequent visitor to the Institution during 1971-3 whilst her husband was employed there in the most junior administrative role of Relieving Deputy Superintendent.
Her report reveals the gross errors that led the 2013 Royal Commission’s processes in Case Study No 7 (the GTS study) into failings against the fair application of the rule of law. As an introduction to her report, Maris Valentine gives a glimpse how serious factual errors of a defamatory nature infected the Commission’s work. It is a disturbing study.
ABSTRACT
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse – Case Study No.7 (Parramatta Girls Training School), examined the testimonies of 16 witnesses who were former inmates at Parramatta GTS. However, this has been done in a one-dimensional way without reference to the experiences of people who were working in the Institution at the time, or of women who had different experiences as girls at Parramatta from those who gave evidence, or of people who had experience with the girls who were inmates at Parramatta and the behaviour many exhibited during the relevant time period. All of this information was available and is necessary.
Too many instances of serious factual errors of a defamatory nature have been uncovered in the records freely available on the Commission’s website. The records have largely been ignored and as a result serious injustices have occurred to some of the alleged perpetrators. A total of five men are involved and perhaps as many as eight men have been defamed. Seven and perhaps eight women are involved.
So many instances of serious factual mistakes of memory have occurred in the testimonies of the witnesses that grave concern exists about the justice of any move to consider totally removing the Statute of Limitations with regard to sexual assault. For the same reason, grave consideration needs to be given to the principle of ‘openness and transparency’ as it applies to the unfettered publication of untested allegations of heinous child sexual assault. Unfortunately, such allegations are too often assumed to be true. Newspapers should not be used as a de facto arm of the law by ‘naming and shaming’.
In order to achieve justice for future victims of child sexual abuse, strategies need to be in place so that early reporting of abuse is encouraged and likely. It is understood that now this is often the case.
The Commission is ethically obliged to restore reputations where possible and to seriously examine its modus operandi for future Public Hearings. The law should not inflict damage on innocent people.
Because the Commission has permitted unnecessary full media publication of alleged perpetrators’ names in the interests of “openness and transparency” the Commission is also ethically obliged to recommend compensation to people whose reputations and health have been damaged by false allegations of child sexual abuse that have occurred as a result of the conduct of this Commission. A false allegation of child sexual abuse is just as serious to the person falsely accused as real child sexual abuse is to the person abused.
***
I visited Noel Greenaway in maximum security in mid-2024. He is still in prison in September 2026, now 89. Frank Valentine died in prison in August 2024, aged 83.
As I detail in my book, the court was provided with dozens of glowing character references for the law-abiding, morally upright Noel Greenaway for the purposes of sentencing (little good did they do him). But the characters of his accusers were never examined. Of course, the jury didn’t get to see Noel’s character references, but my point is how the presumption of innocence is lost in such cases.
The eulogies at Frank Valentine’s funeral also painted a picture of a decent, law abiding man.
But the claim that their convictions were wrongful doesn’t rely on those glowing character references but on the transcripts of their trials and the courts accepting the uncorroborated – and often suspect – claims against them. For example, take the litany of errors by Frank Valentune’s trial judge, Nicole Noman, as outlined in Valentine’s appeal against his convictions. The judges hearing the appeal, Basten AJA, Button J and Wilson J, failed to accept the many errors.
Some of the 500 points in the appeal document by Valentine’s legal team:
-The trial judge erred in making critical findings of fact which were not open in reasoning towards guilt.
-The trial judge erred in failing to have regard to, or acknowledge, what was uncontradicted in the evidence giving rise to a reasonable doubt.
-It is contended the compounding improbabilities caused by the unchallenged or competing evidence at trial required of the judge acting rationally to have entertained a doubt in respect of the allegations of each complainant.
-It is to be noted that in the Reasons the trial judge observed that she was not to be inappropriately influenced by palpable distress, yet the Reasons contain no analysis of why it was appropriate to be influenced by DW’s “palpable distress”.
-The trial judge evidently concluded that “she could tell truth from falsehood accurately on the basis of such appearances” including by the “manner” of a witness’ appearing to do their best. (See below)
-Mrs Valentine’s evidence was entirely rejected on critical issues because it was unpersuasive yet when capable of being set against objective evidence it was wholly persuasive. For example, Mrs Valentine was captured on intercept material referring to a camp at Daruk, at which her car was stolen, which measured against the documentary was clearly correct. That camp, the evidence established, was March 1974. She referred to what must have been (complainant) DW in intercept material as a lovely boy, entirely consistent with her retaining a photo of him, yet her Honour found as much irreconcilable with the defence case and moreover in a way persuasive of guilt.
The “key issues” which underpinned her Honour rejecting the appellant’s evidence in its entirety were not identified..
The above cases of Mr Valentine and Mr Greenaway are very concerning.
Keith Windschuttle’s 2020 book the Persecution of George Pell contains a Chapter entitled The Activism of the Royal Commission Part 1 which includes details of questionable historic sexual assault allegations made in Ballarat at the time of the Royal Commission. Windschuttle writes that under normal legal procedures, cases where allegations were as flimsy as the examples provided in the book would never reach a court of law because the DPP would weed them out before wasting the time of their own officers or those of the courts (hopefully this is happening!). He said a Royal Commission is under no such constraints… “one of its strategies is to use scandalous evidence to gain big headlines and so influence public opinion, then bogus allegations, even if disproven later, may well become part of its operational repertoire.
The private narratives are often referred to in the media but the Royal Commissioners put a disclaimer next to each private narrative on the RC website – “The information the person provided was not evidence, the person was not a witness, and did not need to take an oath or affirmation, although they were expected to tell the truth. Nothing in this story is a finding of the Royal Commission.”
The Royal Commission cost over $342 million. The venue costs for hotel private sessions (presumably relating to the private narratives with the disclaimer) were: Melbourne $869K, Sydney $305K, Brisbane $493K, Perth $240K and Adelaide $107K.
A 2019 $298,000 ARC Grant awarded to the University of Canberra entitled the “Mediatisation of the Royal Commission” provided an insight into how the media was used by the RC: “As a bespoke organisation independent of government, a Royal Commission has a unique opportunity to evolve and develop its own structures and strategies. Chair Justice Peter McClellan capitalised on this flexibility by adapting its focus as evidence became available through the private sessions, policy and engagement teams. Nowhere was this responsiveness more evident than taking the Commission to Rome for an international public hearing of testimony by Cardinal George Pell.”
That grant also revealed that ” A team of creative writers and journalists was employed to synthesise and write up the de-identified testimony. Simply titled ‘Narratives’, this section of the RCRICSA Final Report captures 3,949 individual stories. The ” synthesising and writing up” costs of the testimony could not be identified in the Royal Commission expenditure statement.
It is interesting that in the video of Julia Gillard announcing the RC in November 2012 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJPoLMn1H1I), she states the commission is about institutional responses to instances and allegations of child abuse in Australia, the word “sexual” is not included but she refers to media reports at the time. She talks about leaders averting their eyes from the evil of child abuse, but how can we avert our eyes to miscarriage of justice and wrongful conviction, particularly where tax payer money has been used in these legal processes.
One of the key recommendations of the RC was the establishment of the National Redress Scheme – compensation could only be awarded for sexual abuse – not physical or emotional abuse.
The application form currently on the NRS website starts off with eligibility requirements:
To be eligible:• you experienced sexual abuse when you were a child (under18 years of age)• the sexual abuse happened before 1 July 2018• you are aged 18 years or over before the end of the Scheme• you are an Australian citizen or permanent resident (some exceptions apply), and• you are applying for redress from an institution.
People in prison for more than 5 years can apply but access to redress may be affected. Here it is interesting to note that there do not seem to be any further media updates in relation to “tip of the iceberg” fraudulent compensation claims as per the story on the ABC website last year: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-13/nsw-police-child-sexual-abuse-alleged-fraud-claims-seven-charged/104932648
The NRS form requires the applicant to detail the abuse, and now also **any other abuse you experienced such as emotional, physical or neglec**, and• anyone you told about the abuse at the time….If you have previously prepared a written statement about your experience of abuse at this institution, it can be attached at the end of the application form. You can name people who you believe knew about the abuse even if you did not report the abuse. Please use the spaces below to write the name(s) they were known by. You could also write their job, title, role or place at the institution. For example, a supervisor, classmate, manager or volunteer. You could also attach any documents you may have that show another person knew about the abuse. Please list any documents on page 27 and then submit copies with your application. You do not have to answer this question. You may not have had a chance to talk to anyone else, or you may not have had anyone to talk to. Thinking about this may be too difficult or bring up bad memories. Your application can still be processed if you do not write anything here.
Part 3 asks about the impact the experience of sexual abuse has had on your life. The Independent Decision Maker will consider this information to make their determination of redress as required under the National Redress Scheme Assessment Framework 2018. You could select words from the list below to describe the impact of the abuse or write a short statement. You can do both or just one. It is your choice: –
Emotional Confidence, Emotions, Shame, Mental health, Anxiety, Depression, PTSD, Relationships, Ability to trust others, Family Friendships, Home life, Parenting, Relationships, General health, Fertility, Hospitalisation from injury, Permanent physical disability, Physical health, Sexual health, Sleep, Use of drugs and alcohol, Employment/Shelter/Study Education, Financial security, Housing, and homelessness, Work, Personal Cultural heritage, Faith, Life choices, Self-care, Sense of self, Sexuality, Wellbeing, Future Opportunities…
The compensation payments are paid for by the Institutions, eg the Church organisation, Boy Scout body, or in case the case of a State Govt Dept eg Dept of Justice or Education, it seems it is the state tax payer who will pay the compensation cost.
Although a signature on the form is required, it does not appear to have to be witnessed by a JP. The forms are processed by “Independent Decision Makers”. According to the NRS website IDMs are ” professionals, who have experience and qualifications in sectors including, but not limited to, social welfare, case management, policy, psychology, Indigenous affairs, and/or legal.
IDMs have a strong understanding of the cultural, social, historical, and political factors relevant to the Scheme, and use their experience and understanding to apply, interpret, and follow legislation.
IDMs also have high emotional intelligence, and use procedural fairness to assess applications, in accordance with the Scheme’s trauma informed framework.”
As per a story by Louise Milligan in the Monthly February 2025, it appears that some of the complainants against Cardinal Pell have received National Redress Scheme payments processed by Independent Decision Makers.
According to Dr Cathy Kezelman, trauma informed practice is “a strengths-based framework which is founded on five core principles – safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration and empowerment as well as respect for diversity. Trauma informed services do no harm i.e. they do not re-traumatise or blame victims for their efforts to manage their traumatic reactions, and they embrace a message of hope and optimism that recovery is possible.
At the time of the RC some Memory academic researchers had concerns about some of the research being undertaken. Richard Guilliat wrote about this in the Aust on 30 Sept 2017: “The $500 million royal commission into institutional child abuse is promoting “ethically dubious” and potentially harmful ideas about the counselling of sexual abuse victims and the reliability of their testimony, senior experts in the field have warned. Several leading national and international researchers say the long-running inquiry has adopted a misguided victim-advocacy role and published misleading, inaccurate research that could potentially undermine the $4 billion redress scheme for abuse victims.
Richard Bryant, director of the Westmead Trauma Stress Clinic, said the royal commission appeared to be advocating counselling practices that were potentially dangerous and contradicted guidelines endorsed by the National Health and Medical Research Council. His concerns were echoed by several experts in psychology, including emeritus professor Don Thomson, chairman of the ethical guidelines committee of the Australian Psychological Society, and Elizabeth Loftus of the University of California Irvine, an internationally renowned memory researcher who described some of the ideas endorsed by the commission as “brain babble”.
Harlene Hayne, vice-chancellor of the University of Otago in New Zealand, said one of the commission’s recent reports contained “a level of error that would probably cause you to fail an undergraduate memory course”. The criticisms centre on two royal commission reports, one on the proposed compensation scheme, the other examining the effects of childhood trauma on memory. The compensation report draws extensively on the advice of Cathy Kezelman, president of the victim-advocacy organisation the Blue Knot Foundation and co-author of a 120-page counselling guide that advocates “trauma-informed care”, an approach the royal commission adopted. Its central idea is that counsellors focus on their clients’ underlying trauma rather than their presenting symptoms.
Thank you Ann for fleshing out the deep-seated problems of some relevant Royal Commissions; disturbing but not surprising, especially as we witness the current Bell Royal Commission fall into error.
I abhor child abuse………and any false accusation of it occurring ……..I also do not trust our legal system……and fear ever seeing the police at my door. I have biases as many do…. I admit them. I feel sorry for the male species who are of good character yet are blamed by devious persons…….which include police and members of the legal system.