The Royal Commission into child sex abuse found the ADF was more concerned about appearing “efficient” than the welfare of a cadet who later killed herself.
Air Force Cadet Sergeant Eleanore Tibble was 15-years-old when she ended her life in 2000 after a relationship with a senior instructor.
The commission found the young cadet was “distraught” after being given the “choice of either submitting a notice of resignation or being dishonourably discharged” when the relationship was discovered.
“We are satisfied that Cadet Sergeant Tibble was denied natural justice in this process, when she should not have been the subject of disciplinary proceedings in any event,” the commission said.
According to the commission, the Air Force Cadets then decided she should be reinstated but she was never told.
Just over two weeks later, she ended her life.
“To say that [her] death has had ongoing effects upon me and my family is an understatement,” Susan Campbell, Eleanore’s mother, told the commission during its 2016 hearings.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my daughter and the abject waste of her life.”
Commission finds bastardisation and sexual abuse common
The Royal Commission held public hearings in Sydney last year to investigate the extent of abuse at HMAS Leeuwin, the Army Apprentice School Balcombe and among Australian Defence Force cadets.
It found physical and sexual abuse and bastardisation was common between the 1960s and 1980s at HMAS Leewin and the Army Apprentice School.
It said recruits at the School were “made to ‘run the gauntlet’ by other apprentices, during which they were punched in the stomach, karate chopped on the back of the neck and kicked.”
At HMAS Leeuwin, the “hierarchy perpetuated a culture in which senior recruits abused recruits who were junior to them” and staff rarely took action to prevent it or discipline recruits.
“What happened to them was wrong,” the Vice Chief of the Defence Force Vice Admiral Ray Griggs said.
“However their stories of personal suffering have helped change the ADF and strengthened the resolve of the senior leadership to stamp out abuse in Defence.”
Defence pointed to reform measures it had undertaken in response to the Royal Commission, including working with children checks and the Defence Youth Safety Framework.
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