Scum West Australian cop

WEST Australian police are reviewing an adverse finding against an inspector accused of failing to respond to complaints about a serial pedophile at a state-run hostel.

Inspector William Todd was the officer in charge at Katanning police station in the mid-1980s when convicted pedophile Dennis McKenna was abusing boys at the town's St Andrews Hostel.

Inspector Todd told an inquiry led by former Supreme Court Justice Peter Blaxell in March that nobody had complained to him about McKenna.

However, Maggie Dawkins, who was a group leader for a state government youth training and employment project at the time, told the inquiry she had spoken to Inspector Todd about McKenna, but no action was taken.

"Inspector Todd must bear the major responsibility for the failure of Mrs Dawkins' persistent efforts to have the matter properly investigated," Mr Blaxell said in a report released yesterday.

Mrs Dawkins said today she didn't understand the reasons for the adverse finding against Inspector Todd, saying she had only sought advice from him.

"He explained to me that I needed to bring the (abused) boy in and he needed to make a statement," Mrs Dawkins told ABC radio.  "Well, the boy didn't want to do that. He was traumatised, he was humiliated, and when I couldn't do that I was told he needed dates and times and that sort of stuff.

"I accepted that, and he (Inspector Todd) told me to go to my superiors in the department and I did that."

She believed he had provided the right advice, but added, "I'm not a lawyer."

"When I went to people in authority in the community and my employers, I thought that they would take the allegations seriously.  "But what they did - because Dennis McKenna was so clever, he was able to build this manipulative sort of falsehood about me so I looked not a person that you would take any notice of - and it worked."

A spokeswoman for WA police said they were digesting the contents of the 465-page report.  "A review will be conducted into the findings of the special inquiry to determine what further action is required."

SOURCE