Table Of Content1
REPORT OF
CASE STUDY NO. 37
The response of the Australian
Institute of Music and RG Dance to
allegations of child sexual abuse
JANUARY 2017
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ISBN: 978-1-925289-94-7
© Commonwealth of Australia 2017
All material presented in this publication is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Australia licence (www.creativecommons.org/licenses).
For the avoidance of doubt, this means this licence only applies to material as set out in this document.
The details of the relevant licence conditions are available on the Creative Commons website as is the
full legal code for the CC BY 3.0 AU licence (www.creativecommons.org/licenses).
Contact us
Enquiries regarding the licence and any use of this document are welcome at:
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
GPO Box 5283
Sydney, NSW, 2001
Email:
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Report of Case Study No. 37
The response of the Australian Institute of Music and RG Dance
to allegations of child sexual abuse
January 2017
COMMISSIONERS
Justice Jennifer Coate
Mr Bob Atkinson AO APM
Professor Helen Milroy
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Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au
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Table of contents
Preface 4
Executve Summary 9
1 The Australian Insttute of Music and Professor Victor Makarov 26
1.1 History and governance of AIM 26
1.2 Sexual abuse of CAA 28
1.3 AIM’s response to allegatons of child sexual abuse 30
1.4 Criminal proceedings 38
1.5 Impact of insttutonal responses on CAA and his family 39
1.6 Child protecton policies and procedures 40
2 RG Dance and Grant Davies 42
2.1 History and governance of RG Dance 42
2.2 Sexual abuse of students of RG Dance 52
2.3 Response of RG Dance to child sexual abuse 61
2.4 Insttutonal response of Parramata JIRT to the allegatons against 71
Grant Davies: 2007–2008
2.5 Allegatons and ofences involving Grant Davies: 2012–2013 84
2.6 Events leading to Grant Davies’ arrest 85
3 Working with Children Checks and Reportng to the Department of 87
Community Services
3.1 RG Dance’s compliance with Working with Children Checks 87
3.2 Reportng to the Department of Community Services 89
3.3 Peak body for the dance industry 90
4 Grooming 91
4.1 Targetng vulnerable students 91
4.2 Use of social media and communicaton devices by Grant Davies 91
4.3 Difcultes in reportng at the tme 92
5 Systemic Issues 94
APPENDIX A: Terms of Reference 95
APPENDIX B: Public Hearing 102
Endnotes 107
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Preface
The Royal Commission
The Leters Patent provided to the Royal Commission require that it ‘inquire into insttutonal
responses to allegatons and incidents of child sexual abuse and related maters’.
In carrying out this task, we are directed to focus on systemic issues but be informed by an
understanding of individual cases. The Royal Commission must make fndings and recommendatons
to beter protect children against sexual abuse and alleviate the impact of abuse on children when
it occurs.
For a copy of the Leters Patent, see Appendix A.
Public hearings
A Royal Commission commonly does its work through public hearings. A public hearing follows
intensive investgaton, research and preparaton by Royal Commission staf and Counsel Assistng
the Royal Commission. Although it may only occupy a limited number of days of hearing tme, the
preparatory work required by Royal Commission staf and by partes with an interest in the public
hearing can be very signifcant.
The Royal Commission is aware that sexual abuse of children has occurred in many insttutons,
all of which could be investgated in a public hearing. However, if the Royal Commission were to
atempt that task, a great many resources would need to be applied over an indeterminate, but
lengthy, period of tme. For this reason the Commissioners have accepted criteria by which Senior
Counsel Assistng will identfy appropriate maters for a public hearing and bring them forward as
individual ‘case studies’.
The decision to conduct a case study will be informed by whether or not the hearing will advance
an understanding of systemic issues and provide an opportunity to learn from previous mistakes,
so that any fndings and recommendatons for future change which the Royal Commission makes
will have a secure foundaton. In some cases the relevance of the lessons to be learned will be
confned to the insttuton the subject of the hearing. In other cases they will have relevance to
many similar insttutons in diferent parts of Australia.
Public hearings will also be held to assist in understanding the extent of abuse which may have
occurred in partcular insttutons or types of insttutons. This will enable the Royal Commission
to understand the way in which various insttutons were managed and how they responded to
allegatons of child sexual abuse. Where our investgatons identfy a signifcant concentraton of
abuse in one insttuton, it is likely that the mater will be brought forward to a public hearing.
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Public hearings will also be held to tell the story of some individuals which will assist in a public
understanding of the nature of sexual abuse, the circumstances in which it may occur and, most
importantly, the devastatng impact which it can have on some people’s lives.
A detailed explanaton of the rules and conduct of public hearings is available in the Practce Notes
published on the Royal Commission’s website at:
www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au
Public hearings are streamed live over the internet.
In reaching fndings, the Royal Commission will apply the civil standard of proof which requires
its ‘reasonable satsfacton’ as to the partcular fact in queston in accordance with the principles
discussed by Dixon J in Briginshaw v Briginshaw (1938) 60 CLR 336:
It is enough that the afrmatve of an allegaton is made out to the reasonable satsfacton
of the tribunal. But reasonable satsfacton is not a state of mind that is atained or
established independently of the nature and consequence of the fact or facts to be proved.
The seriousness of an allegaton made, the inherent unlikelihood of an occurrence of a
given descripton, or the gravity of the consequences fowing from a partcular fnding are
consideratons which must afect the answer to the queston whether the issue has been
proved to the reasonable satsfacton of the tribunal...the nature of the issue necessarily
afects the process by which reasonable satsfacton is atained.
In other words, the more serious the allegaton, the higher the degree of probability that is required
before the Royal Commission can be reasonably satsfed as to the truth of that allegaton.
Private sessions
When the Royal Commission was appointed, it was apparent to the Australian Government that
many people (possibly thousands) would wish to tell us about their personal history of child sexual
abuse in an insttutonal setng. As a result, the Commonwealth Parliament amended the Royal
Commissions Act 1902 to create a process called a ‘private session’.
A private session is conducted by one or two Commissioners and is an opportunity for a person to
tell their story of abuse in a protected and supportve environment. As at 6 January 2017, the Royal
Commission has held 6,349 private sessions and more than 2,166 people were waitng to atend
one. Many accounts from these sessions will be recounted in later Royal Commission reports in a
de-identfed form.
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Research program
The Royal Commission also has an extensive research program. Apart from the informaton we gain
in public hearings and private sessions, the program will draw on research by consultants and the
original work of our own staf. Signifcant issues will be considered in issues papers and discussed
at roundtables.
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This case study
In Case Study 37, the Royal Commission into Insttutonal Responses to Child Sexual Abuse examined
allegatons of child sexual abuse of a number of former students at two performing arts insttutons
in Sydney, New South Wales:
• the Australian Insttute of Music (AIM) in Surry Hills
• RG Dance Pty Limited (RG Dance) – a dance studio that operated in Five Dock and later
in Chiswick.
The public hearing was held in Sydney between 2 March 2016 and 11 March 2016.
The scope and purpose of the public hearing was to inquire into the following maters:
i. The experiences of former students of AIM between 2002 and 2011.
ii. The response of AIM to allegatons of child sexual abuse of students made
against Professor Victor Makarov.
iii. The experiences of children who received dance instructon at RG Dance
between 2001 and 2013.
iv. The response of RG Dance and its members of staf to concerns raised or
complaints made about the behaviour of Grant Davies.
v. The policies, practces and procedures of AIM and RG Dance in relaton to
raising and responding to concerns and complaints about child sexual abuse.
vi. Any related maters.
The frst part of the public hearing inquired into the manner in which AIM responded to the
allegatons made against Makarov, including its failure to address the risk posed by Makarov to
students of AIM. The Royal Commission heard evidence from a former student of AIM who was
sexually abused by Makarov. The principal of AIM at the tme of the abuse of this student and
the current principal also gave evidence.
During the second part of the public hearing the Royal Commission heard evidence from four
former students of RG Dance and their experiences of sexual and emotonal abuse by their
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dance instructor, Grant Davies. That part of the hearing examined the knowledge of staf and
management of RG Dance about Grant Davies’ behaviour towards children before his arrest in
May 2013 and what acton, if any, those persons took in response to that knowledge.
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