Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard testimony on Monday centering on the child abuse case leveled against former National Team coach Scott Volkers.
Australia’s 9News reports that during some of the testimony, an alleged victim said her case against Volkers was dropped because the swim coach was too high-profile to target with a publically funded lawsuit.
You can read the 9News story by clicking this link. The alleged victim, Julie Gilbert, says in the report that she met with Queensland’s then-Director of Public Prosecutions Paul Rutledge and was told that “the ODPP (Office of Director of Public Prosecutions) could not use public money to go after a high-profile person like Mr Volkers when three [alleged victims] were saying something had happened, but a thousand other girls trained by him said nothing happened,” 9News reports.
The charges against Volkers were eventually dropped, but when he applied for a ‘blue card’ – which would legally approve him to work with children – he was denied twice. However, the Commission also heard testimony alleging that Volkers still managed to coach a group of girls ages 14 to 17 on a Swimming Queensland trip to China.
9News reports that Queensland’s Commission for Children and Young People received complaints about Volkers coaching young girls on the trip, and subsequently contacted him to let him know his activities were illegal and order him to stop.
Unable to coach children in the country, Volkers then left for Brazil, taking over the Minas Tenis club in the South American country. He is still with Minas Tenis at present.
