The Green Party is calling on the Minister of Police to immediately establish an independent taskforce to implement and enforce changes in police culture in the wake of a damming report from the Independent Police Complaints Authority’s (IPCA) into the so called Roastbusters gang.
The Green Party is calling on the Minister of Police to immediately establish an independent taskforce to implement and enforce changes in police culture in the wake of a damming report from the Independent Police Complaints Authority’s (IPCA) into the so called Roastbusters gang.
The IPCA report shows the police failed to take the complaints of the gang’s young victims seriously or take actions to prevent further women and girls from being abused.
“This is yet another report that shows the police can’t be trusted to take seriously the complaints of sexual violence victims,” said Green Party Women’s spokesperson Jan Logie.
“The Police Minister must immediately establish a taskforce to implement the recommendations in this report, the 2007 Bazely report and the 2010 IPCA report, and to enforce a significant culture shift in polices attitudes towards the victims of child abuse and sexual violence.
“This is the third review highlighting the same problems, a fact that the IPCA found ‘disturbing’.
“Eight years after the Bazely review of the Louise Nicholas case, a woman still can’t walk into a police station, claim she’s been abused and be believed. This means victims are not getting justice, and that perpetrators are free to hurt others.
“Every day that goes by is a day that victims of sexual violence risk facing inexcusable treatment by their police force. Urgent action is required.
“Revelations that the Police could have stopped the so called Roastbusters from preying on young women but didn’t even bother talking to the young men, or their parents, defy belief.
“How many young women were subsequently abused as a direct consequence of the police’s failure to stop the Roastbusters gang from hurting others?
“Suggestions in the report that the victims of the Roastbusters gang were treated with compassion and courtesy by police is not good enough. They needed justice and they didn’t get it because of the police.
“Police claims that they didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute the men can’t be taken seriously when the report shows that they didn’t even consider all the available offences.
“It is hard to conceive how the police could now do right by the complainants in these cases, but the least the Police Minister can do is ensure that failures like this never happen again,” Ms Logie said.
