By Derek Schlennstedt
The Victorian Government will make a formal apology in Parliament to the people who suffered childhood sexual abuse in connection with the Puffing Billy railway and other railway bodies.
The state apology will be delivered at Parliament House at 10am on 27 November after a recommendation in the state ombudsman’s report into the involvement of now-dead convicted child sex offender Robert Whitehead’s with a number of train organisations.
“The Victorian Ombudsman’s report detailed harrowing abuse perpetrated at Puffing Billy and other Victorian railways by people who held positions of power and trust,” Tourism Minister Martin Pakula said on Friday.
“The victims were children who for too long felt unable to tell their stories, and when they did, too many people did not want to hear them.”
“It is important that we acknowledge how these people were betrayed and say to them, we are sorry.”
The report was tabled in June last year, and the Ombudsman’s investigation was announced in 2017 after an initial call for an investigation was made by one of the victims, Mr Wayne Clarke.
The report centred on Robert Whitehead, a convicted sex offender who was a volunteer at Puffing Billy from 1961 until 1990.
He died in jail in 2015 after pleading guilty to 24 charges.
The Emerald Tourism Railway Board, responsible for operating Puffing Billy, and the attraction’s chief executive, resigned earlier this year, with an interim group installed.
Victims and their families have been invited to be at Parliament House for the apology.
For further information on the 27 November apology, call 1800 951 095 or email puffingbilly.enquiries@ecodev.vic.gov.au.
