http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s3012318.htm
The full story...Grandfather battles false rape claim
Nicole Butler reported this story on Wednesday, September 15, 2010 12:55:00
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ELEANOR HALL: Now to our interview with the Queensland man who falsely accused of raping his daughter and fathering his own grandchild.
The 64-year-old today gave his first radio interview to The World Today, but he can't be identified for legal reasons.
He says he discovered the accusations last year when he sought carer status so that he could help to look after his daughter's children.
The grandfather was then told he'd had to prove that he wasn’t a rapist.
But the Child Safety Department repeatedly refused to amend his record even when he provided DNA evidence and police statements that cleared him.
In Brisbane, Nicole Butler reports. And a warning this story does contain some disturbing descriptions.
NICOLE BUTLER: The 64-year-old man falsely accused of raping his daughter and fathering his own grandchild says his nightmare began 18 months ago, when he sought a kinship carer status for his daughter's two children.
She'd been having difficulty looking after them because she was the victim of domestic violence. The grandfather says he was stunned when his carer application was refused and devastated when the children were taken into foster care.
GRANDFATHER: I got a phone call to say that the, that DoCS took the children. So I put in an application for a kinship carer, it got knocked back, and I didn't know why, they wouldn't give me a reason why.
NICOLE BUTLER: The man says authorities offered him no help, and he was left to investigate why he was denied carer status. He says he lodged a right to information application, but he couldn't believe what the report said about him.
GRANDFATHER: That I was the father of the child, of the daughter's child, and grandfather.
NICOLE BUTLER: So basically, it accused you of…
GRANDFATHER: Raping my own daughter.
NICOLE BUTLER: The man, who lived just outside Toowoomba, and his daughter, insisted the findings were completely untrue. Yet the grandfather was banned from having access to his nine-year-old granddaughter, and the child wasn't allowed to stay with him and his wife during holidays as she'd done in the past eight years.
GRANDFATHER: I couldn't live with that.
NICOLE BUTLER: The 64-year-old says he tried in earnest to have the details that falsely accused him of incest and rape removed from his file.
GRANDFATHER: I went to my local member, I went to the Minister for Child Safety, I went to every possible avenue, and I got knocked back at the lot. They weren't interested. They kept saying "what's in the file stays in the file."
NICOLE BUTLER: The man says after getting no help from authorities, he took a DNA test to prove he hadn't fathered his granddaughter.
GRANDFATHER: I had to sell my caravan to pay $800 for the DNA test.
NICOLE BUTLER: He also provided child safety officers with a police certificate that showed he had no criminal history. But again, no-one would amend his record or even review his file.
The grandfather says he was warned not to go to the media, but after battling authorities for 18 months, he ultimately contacted a journalist.
He says three hours after the reporter contacted the Minister's office; the mistake on his file was confirmed.
GRANDFATHER: When, yeah, when things really blew up. Three hours after that, they found one mistake, yeah. They rang me and apologised. And I said "well, look that's just not good enough", I said "the whole file was wrong".
And she said, "well, we'll have to go right back through it then." And that's the last I've heard of them.
NICOLE BUTLER: The Minister for Child Safety, Phil Reeves, isn't commenting on the case. His office says that it's an operational issue, and the acting director-general of the Department of Community Services, Betty Kill, is the best person to speak on it.
Ms Kill says it appears to have been a case of mistaken identity.
BETTY KILL: Well, we're undertaking a review of this file, but to my knowledge there was an email that had a last name, but not a first name on it and it was wrongly placed on the file.
NICOLE BUTLER: The World Today has been told the grandfather had the same surname and first initial of a convicted rapist. Ms Kill says that even though the department's put a criminal's details on the wrong file, they did contact the grandfather to advise him of the changes they'd made.
BETTY KILL: As part of our normal process, the staff would have written to him, and indeed did write to him, and that provided him with an opportunity to give us further information in case our information was wrong.
NICOLE BUTLER: She concedes it shouldn't have taken over a year for the mistakes to be corrected, especially after the grandfather had provided official documents that proved his innocence.
BETTY KILL: Well this is precisely why I've ordered the review of his case and the complaints process. But, I would say to you that I am concerned that it took this long. This is unusual and that is why we're undertaking the review.
ELEANOR HALL: That's Betty Kill from Queensland's Department of Communities.
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