Rod Corrie – Scouts NSW Child Abuse – A Call For Witnesses
Koffels Solicitors and Barristers is seeking witnesses to child sexual abuse perpetrated by Roderick Albert Joseph Corrie, a former NSW Branch Commissioner and scout leader.
We are currently assisting survivors who were sexually abused by Roderick Albert Joseph Corrie, aka Rod Corrie who according to the Sydney Morning Herald abused Scouts over a 30-year period between the late 1960s and the mid-to-late 1990s.
As noted in online reports:
“Corrie, one of the most senior and highly decorated Scouts in NSW, was jailed for seven years in February 2000 after pleading guilty in the District Court to eight most serious of 77 charges of sexually abusing children as young as 11, including rape and buggery, occurring 1969–1995. Two years earlier, Corrie had been convicted of eight charges of “aggravated indecent assault” and placed on a bond, given counselling and 70 hours of community service.”
“The leader of Australia’s 90,000-strong Scouting movement, Dr Bruce Munro, apologised to the families of those abused after the Sydney Morning Herald obtain a copy of a 14-page report written by a senior Scout leader in 1981 that detailed serious allegations of Corrie abusing four boys, one aged 12 at the time. Munro admitted that those allegations were not properly investigated or referred to the police and that although Corrie was initially suspended, he was then simply allowed to transfer as a leader to a North Shore Scouting group. Even after police began investigating Corrie in 1994, he was allowed to continue having contact with – and sexually abusing — scouts until at least May 1995. According to the chief executive of NSW Scouts, Mr Peter Olah, Corrie was one of seven paedophiles in the ‘movement’ to be convicted during the past 10 years.”
Corrie pleaded guilty to additional 40 child sexual abuse charges in February 2021 for offences between 1963 and 1980.
The court heard that after his release in 2007, Corrie sexually abused further children. Judge Pickering said he would still be abusing children now if he wasn’t behind bars.
On 22 July 2022, he was sentenced to 14 years, with a non-parole period of nine years.
If you can provide information to assist survivors who were abused by Roderick Albert Joseph Corrie and would like to talk to one of our historic institutional child sexual abuse specialists, for free and in confidence, about your legal options, please feel free to either complete the form below with the best way and the best time to contact you, or you can call us on 02 9283 5599.
