A paedophile doctor continued to practise for decades after allegations of sexual abuse were first made to health care authorities with victims routinely fobbed off, a royal commission has heard.
John Rolleston held senior positions at Royal North Shore Hospital and Broken Hill Hospital in the 1980s and 1990s, despite one of his victims first raising abuse allegations with the then NSW Medical Board in 1977.
The complainant, named AWA, told the royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse he was threatened with legal action when he contacted the board after being molested by Rolleston at the doctor’s St Ives general practice.
Another survivor of abuse by Dr Rolleston, named AWG, told the commission he went to NSW police in 2009 when he read of the arrests of his former teachers at Knox Grammar School on child sex abuse charges.
“At that time I began to suspect that there may be a connection between Dr Rolleston and the teachers at Knox Grammar School,” he said. “Because of my suspicion, I made a telephone call to NSW Police.”
AWA said of his complaint to the board: “The male on the telephone proceeded to threaten me and said, ‘Please listen carefully, if you try to make a complaint against one of our members we will come down so hard on you, we will sue you so that your head will be so far up your arse you won’t see daylight for years.”
AWA told the commission he attended Dr Rolleston’s practice with a cold and was asked to remove all his clothes. Dr Rolleston stimulated the teenager’s genitals, telling his patient he needed to “get some liquid” from his penis.
On the third occasion the doctor treated him in this way for a cold, AWA, then aged 15, questioned the method.
“I was feeling quite uncomfortable and I said, ‘Why are you doing this to me when I only have a common cold?’,” he told the commission.
The mother of the abuse survivor AWG who attended Knox was advised not to report Rolleston to medical authorities because she wouldn’t win.
“It would be very difficult to raise allegations and question the family doctor because he was a respected member of the community and that it was unlikely that her word would be believed over Dr Rolleston’s,” AWG said.
The commission heard Rolleston, the former medical director of accident and emergency at Royal North Shore Hospital and director of medical services at Broken Hill Hospital, was de-registered in 1987 for professional misconduct relating to fraud but his registration was restored in 1990.
AWB told the commission he was molested after seeing Rolleston for a sore foot in the late 1970s. When he discovered by chance the doctor was still practising he tried to report his abuse to health care authorities but was “given the brush off”.
In 2011 Rolleston, now 79, was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for multiple sexual offences against teenage patients. His sentence is due to finish on June 23.
The royal commission’s public hearing is examining the response of health care regulators and providers into allegations of child sexual abuse.
The hearing, before Justice Peter McClellan,continues.
- Adults Surviving Child Abuse: 1300 657 380
- Survivors and Mates Support Network: 02 8355 3711
- Bravehearts: 1800 272 831.