Vic: Teachers to secure ``crime scenes'' at school

AAP General News (Australia)
04-15-2007
Vic: Teachers to secure ``crime scenes'' at school

MELBOURNE, April 15 AAP - Teachers in Victoria will be taught how to secure crime scenes
and report all incidents in a bid to stamp out sex assaults and abuse in schools.

The Crime Scene Investigation (CSI)-style initiative, to be finalised this week, comes
as News Limited newspapers reveal more than three incidents of school-based sexual assault
are reported each week.

The Victorian Centres Against Sexual Assault (CASA) Forum says recent incidents include:

* A girl, 14, allegedly raped by a male student in an equipment room at a Melbourne school;

* A girl, 15, allegedly raped by a male student on a school camp; and

* Girls being cornered on school grounds by male students and digitally penetrated.

Support groups strongly welcome the new guidelines, saying the real toll is higher
and increasing.

The state Department of Education guidelines are expected to provide advice for principals
and teachers on managing potential crimes, including sexual assaults, and securing alleged
crime scenes to preserve evidence.

News Ltd figures reveal 45 reports of school-based sexual assault to the department
between September 4 and December 31. Melbourne north schools have reports of 12 incidents,
the most of any area, followed by nine in the south.

CASA Forum spokeswoman Carolyn Worth, who said its centres helped students regularly
to overcome "very serious" sexual assaults, welcomed the move as there hadn't been a set
policy to follow and principals had had a lot of discretion.

A departmental spokeswoman said every case of sexual assault was taken "very seriously".

AAP jat/rs

KEYWORD: SCHOOLS

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