Pot-Bellied Pedophiles

October 3, 2012 permalink

Australian police are investigating the connection between two convicted pedophiles, Children's Services chief executive Steven Andrew Larkins and the late Robert Holland, a foster parent who used a uniform and ID from Hunter Aboriginal Children's Services to enhance his credibility with child victims. From their appearance they validate Alex Jones' parody of the pot-bellied pedophile (flv).

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Paedophiles may have acted as carers

October 4, 2012, Rory Callinan

Potential paedophile ring ... former Children's Services chief Steven Larkins.

Photo: Dean Osland

Robert Holland.

Photo: David Wicks

ONE of the state's worst paedophiles was able to access children by using a uniform and an ID tag from an Aboriginal foster child agency which employed a child abuser as its chief executive for nearly 10 years, the Herald has learned.

The connection has raised fears a paedophile ring may have been operating in the Hunter and Newcastle areas in the 2000s.

Police have been investigating how a shirt and ID tag from the Hunter Aboriginal Children's Services, a not for profit agency, were obtained by the paedophile foster carer Robert Holland.

Holland had them as part of his cover to access vulnerable and troubled children in the 2000s.

He died in jail in 2009 after being convicted of dozens of paedophile offences relating to children placed in his care by the courts and the state government.

The investigation into the link with Holland was sparked after the Children's Services chief executive, Steven Andrew Larkins, was convicted this year on charges of abusing two boys in the 1990s and of possessing child pornography and fraud offences.

Larkins had been in the senior management role at the children's services agency for almost a decade and had been given parental responsibility for the Aboriginal children, which enabled him to take them to his home.

Yesterday, the new HACS chief executive, Terry Chenery, confirmed police had been investigating a potential connection between Larkins and the uniform and ID tag which Holland had used.

''From what I know he [Holland] was not connected and never has been but [he] somehow managed to get some of our clothing and a HACS tag that you attached,'' Mr Chenery said.

''It [a connection to Larkins] is possible but there's no indication that he [Holland] ever worked or had an affiliation with us.''

Holland was able to access the children after becoming a foster carer and acting as a support person at the courts and at a home for troubled boys.

He was charged in 2007 with nearly 100 offences against 19 then-teenagers between 1969 and 2006. Some of the victims were children who had been put in his temporary foster care by the Department of Community Services or the courts.

Police said at the time of Holland's arrest the Department of Community Services had granted the care of many Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children to the accused from the 1980s onwards.

The department this week said it could not comment on the matter as it was not involved in ''bailing children'' to individuals from the Children's Court.

Last month, Larkins was convicted and sentenced to at least nine months in jail for four counts of possessing child abuse material. He was given a further 12-month minimum sentence for forging the working with children documents to obtain his $86,000-a-year position and for lying in a statutory declaration, amounting to a total non-parole period of 19 months.

The sentence has been stayed pending an appeal, although Larkins is not contesting the three-year good behaviour bond handed down for the assaults on the two boys. The appeal will be mentioned in the Newcastle District Court on November 15.

Do you know more? rcallinan@fairfaxmedia.com.au

Source: Sydney Morning Herald