A mother phoned Tasmania's Child Safety Service because she said she did not know who else to call when she was increasingly worried about what was happening to her daughter at the Launceston General Hospital.
Angela* gave evidence to the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government's Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings on Tuesday.
CONTENT WARNING: This story contains details that may cause distress
She told the commission her daughter, Lillian*, who has a disability and is non-verbal but able to communicate, was a vibrant "people person" whose life was changed forever when she spent time in the children's ward at the LGH in 2018 when she was about 11 years old.
It was the same ward where paedophile nurse James Geoffrey Griffin worked for years.
Angela said Lillian started "acting strangely" around Griffin.
"When I asked him about a rash that had started, he wanted to see it and then when I slightly pulled her nappy down … he's come over and he's tapped her with his hand and said, 'She'll be right.'"
Angela said Griffin was touching Lillian on the vagina and did not make any attempt to communicate with her. She also said hospital staff generally did not attempt to communicate with Lillian.
She said when she told Griffin that Lillian was able to communicate, he was "very shocked".
"Over the next couple of days was when things got worse," Angela said. "I turned up the next day and she was screaming in her bed sweating.
"The blinds were all pulled down, and this was the room right outside the office of the ward.
"I've just barged in there and seen her, and I've got her up and gave her a cuddle and then I gave her a shower, and she had cream everywhere all over her vagina … it was just plastered on there, it wasn't normal, it's not right."
Angela said she noticed Lillian had an injury to her vagina.
"I was running in and out of the hospital crying because I just could not understand what was going on with her and the doctors would not listen to me, no one was listening to me, no nurse was telling me what was going on, who was putting cream on her, nothing like that."
Angela said that was why she called Child Safety Services.
"I didn't know who else to call."
She said she asked Griffin about the cream.
She said the head nurse told her she could make a complaint.
"She said she could give me a form to put in and that's what she did, and she told me she was going to take complaints but whether or not it happened, I have no idea."
Angela said no-one had ever followed up with her, and she felt that the hospital staff looked down on her because she was a single parent.
"They called me at one stage, 'Oh the girl with the Ugg boots', you know, that's how they treated me … they've always been glad to see the back of us for some reason."
Angela said Lillian had separation anxiety when she was younger but had been making progress before she went to the LGH in 2018.
Now, she said, Lillian was reluctant to go anywhere without her mother, and Angela no longer takes her to the LGH for medical treatment. Instead, she drives to Hobart.
Angela said she planned to move.
For years, Griffin worked as a registered nurse at the Paediatric Centre at the LGH, the Spirit of Tasmania ferry and at the Ashley Youth Detention Centre.
He died by suicide in October 2019, a month after he was charged with a number of child sexual abuse offences.
The first alleged abuses dated back to the early 1980s, and, according to an internal Tasmania Police review, the first allegation against Griffin was made in 2009.
Angela said it was "a big reality check" when allegations of child sexual abuse against Griffin were reported in the media.
"Everything made sense from our last day [at the hospital]. It was a big shock," she said.
The commission of inquiry is holding six weeks of public hearings in Hobart and Launceston over the coming months.
Its particular focus areas are the health and education departments, Launceston General Hospital, Ashley Youth Detention Centre and the state's out-of-home care system.
When asked what message Lillian would have for the commission, Angela said:
"That everyone's got a voice and you've just got to listen, people have to listen."
*Names have been changed.
