Ex-Salvation Army major John McIver acquitted of child sex abuse

Notorious former Salvation Army major John McIver has been acquitted of the latest raft of child sex abuse charges in the District Court.

Notorious former Salvation Army major John McIver has been acquitted of the latest raft of child sex abuse charges in the District Court.

Victims groups are furious that they cannot find out the reasons why he was found not guilty this week after a judge-alone trial because there is no transcript of the judge’s reasons.

The Salvation Army was found by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse to have covered up the allegations of sexual and physical abuse by McIver, 79, at their Bexley Boys’ Home in Sydney and Queensland’s Indooroopilly Boys’ home in the 1960s and 1970s.

He has always strenuously denied any wrongdoing.

McIver is currently on bail pending his appeal against convictions in late 2019 of four sickening sexual assaults upon boys as young as four at Bexley Boys’ Home in the 1970.

He had been jailed for nine years six months with a non-parole period of five years eight months and 28 days but served just seven months before being granted bail ahead of his appeal.

This week in the District Court, Judge James Bennett found McIver not guilty of two counts of buggery and three counts of indecent assault from when he was at Bexley Boys’ Home.

The Bexley Boys Home in the 1970s.

The District Court said there was no written record of the reasons. McIver’s legal team has flagged applying for costs against the prosecution.

Leonie Sheedy, CEO of the Care Leavers Australasia Network, said the men who gave evidence against McIver were devastated.

“They can’t even find out why. How can we trust the NSW justice system?” Ms Sheedy said on Thursday.

“I got a call from one of them on Wednesday and he said to me do I have to go to Bunnings to get a rope.”

She pleaded with the court to provide a transcript of the judge’s decision.

In 1976, McIver was transferred to a Salvation Army aged care facility after complaints about abuse at both boys’ homes.

He retired from The Salvation Army in 2004.

He has been confined to house arrest at his Richmond home 24 hours a day until his appeal is heard and cannot leave except in the event of a medical emergency.

John McIver, 79, during a 2017 police interview.

McIver has appealed the guilty verdicts handed down in September 2019 by Judge Nanette Williams including that he anally raped the four-year-old and publicly prodded a 14-year-old boy’s anus under the guise of checking for worms.

Judge Williams acquitted him of three counts of indecent assault.

“He presented as controlling, domineering and argumentative in the witness box,” Judge Williams said in her written reasons.

The royal commission said in its final report that the number of boys at Indooroopilly had gone from 63 to fewer than 10 as the Queensland Department of Children’s Services had refused to send any more boys there until McIver was removed.

“Ultimately we found that The Salvation Army did not adequately investigate or take any action in

relation to the allegations of physical and sexual abuse that it received about … and McIver,” the commission said.

The District Court said a transcript of the judge’s ruling had been ordered and would be published online but it “can take between 4 – 10 weeks”.

A court spokeswoman said none of the complainants had contacted the court or the prosecution to ask to be present when the decision was handed down. Ms Sheedy said they had not known when the trial would finish.

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