Two days ago, The Adelaide Advertiser reported: “A system designed to protect children from harm has recorded a tenfold increase in sexual abuse claims, new figures reveal.”
I have been corresponding with a particular agency (I will not name names to guard against legal action against me) and publish this letter (with extractions) that I sent back her — the public official in question.
The letter:
For the attention of xxx — of ‘oversight body’
Re: Falsification of Police Evidence, Criminal Neglect and Removal of a Child Through Deception.
Dear xxxx,
Further to my previous correspondence, I attach the article from yesterday’s Advertiser (29 October 2026), reporting a tenfold increase in recorded sexual abuse within South Australia’s child protection system.
Hardly surprising. I suspect the real figures are considerably worse, given how serious disclosures can be concealed, dismissed or left uninvestigated. Which brings me back to the extraordinary case of alleged government misconduct I first brought to your personal attention in December 2018.
I must now conclude that your office is part of the very problem it was established to address.
In 2018, you assured me that this matter would receive proper investigative attention. Instead, the investigation appeared to be abandoned. Years of correspondence with xxxx (the head of the agency) produced no satisfactory explanation.
Consider what has transpired:
- 2016: A six-year-old child’s sexual abuse disclosures were substantiated by a Child Protection Services investigator under the SEX1 category after a forensic interview.
- 2017: A SAPOL Sergeant conducted a forensic interview in which the child (just turned eight) disclosed versions of rape, assault and extreme acts of cruelty.
- The police record: Despite those disclosures, the official account subsequently asserted “nil disclosures”. This was a demonstrably false representation of the recorded evidence.
- Police Investigations: A detective did not even view the interview recording and also recorded no disclosures.
- 2018 onwards: Your office was alerted. Yet all successive police, child protection and oversight agency processes failed to resolve the contradiction and essentially reported nothing to see here. Hundreds of letters and complaints were discarded.
- The courts: The Family Court, Children’s Court, Magistrate Court and Supreme Court failed to confront the original forensic evidence and its contradiction in the record.
- 2026: Your office declares that these matters have already been assessed.
What an extraordinary achievement in public accountability.
A child discloses rape and torture, yet police records assert “nil disclosures”. Investigators fail to confront the original evidence. Oversight bodies fail to correct the record. Courts made decisions affecting the child’s liberty and protection. And the xxxx closes the file.
I challenged you to produce a more egregious case of misconduct.
These events raise serious questions of potential criminal conduct under the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA):
- Section 80 — Abduction of a child by force or fraud: Whether any unlawful removal or detention was procured through deliberate deception, with the requisite intent.
- Section 14 — Criminal neglect: Whether persons owing the child a duty of care failed, with the requisite awareness and seriousness, to protect her from harm.
- Section 139 — Deception: Whether deliberate misrepresentations were used dishonestly to obtain a benefit or cause detriment.
I am not asserting that these offences have been judicially established. I am asking why the evidence has not been independently investigated to determine whether they were committed.
At a glance over eight years of correspondence, I suggest that approximately sixty public officials encountered aspects of this case. I do not allege that every official acted dishonestly. But how can such an extensive chain of public administration fail to correct one fundamental and absolute contradiction?
Your office, unlike the mother, had statutory powers to obtain and examine relevant government records. Yet, despite the powers within government, I have found no evidence that a single public officer formally corrected the disputed police record.
The child was removed from her mother’s care and deprived of her liberty. They disrupted her childhood by fraud.
I brought this matter to you in 2018. Eight years later, the central contradiction remains unresolved. No wonder there is a ten-fold increase in sexual abuse. If the rape and torture of a young girl is concealed and discarded, then it is plainly open season on young children.
Yours sincerely,
Dee McLachlan
Subject: Yesterdays digital Advertiser 29 10 26