Derryn Hinch accuses Redlands College of not informing parents about a paedophile teacher in explosive Senate speech

DERRYN Hinch entered the Senate with a pledge to name every sex offender in the country. On Tuesday night, he began to deliver.

Senator Derryn Hinch speaks in the senate on Monday. Picture: AAP/Lukas Coch

DERRYN Hinch entered the Senate four months ago with a pledge to use parliamentary privilege to name every sex offender in the country.

On Tuesday night, he began to deliver.

In an explosive speech, the cross bench senator not only named a convicted paedophile schoolteacher, he accused a Queensland private school of failing to tell parents about him.

The former radio host has waged a longstanding war to name sex offenders, whose names are often suppressed by the courts to protect their victims.

He has served two jail stints for previously doing so, in 2011 and 2013.

But in the safety of the Senate chamber on Tuesday night, Mr Hinch used the protection of parliamentary privilege to accuse Brisbane bayside school Redlands College of lying to parents to protect a paedophile teacher.

Derryn Hinch arrived in the Senate with a pledge to name and shame sex offenders. Picture: Kym Smith

“One of the community members whom the principal and board of Redlands have been showing care and respect for is convicted paedophile Jonathan Sims,” he said.

“He was a Year 2 teacher at Redlands who groomed a young male student and sexually abused him for several years.

“When police were alerted — Sims was charged last year — the popular teacher took long service leave.

“It seems the Church of Christ school was very happy for parents and students to believe then that he was on leave and to believe it now, even though Jonathan Sims was spending that long service leave behind bars, in jail.”

Mr Hinch said the school had failed parents.

“Surely, if a teacher is charged, convicted and jailed for the prolonged sexual abuse of a student, that school has a duty to inform parents who that teacher is, what he has being doing and why he has taken long service leave, and maybe alert them in case there are other victims as well — and there probably were,” he told the upper house.

In a statement sent to parents in the early hours of Wednesday, college principal Mark Bensely told parents the school had “acted properly at all times”.

“It is unfortunate that the good name of Redlands College has been questioned by misinformation that was provided to him and media outlets,” the statement read.

“The staff member in question had resigned from the college prior to the college being informed of the allegations, which were already in the hands of the police.

“These events did not take place at the college or at any college-related event.”

Hinch’s longstanding campaign has seen him serve two jail terms. Picture: Tony Gough

“From the moment we learned of these allegations, pastoral support was provided to give assistance to the victim and the victim’s family.

“We believe we acted properly at all times and that no student was placed at risk.”

One Brisbane mother told AAP she found out the paedophile teacher had been working at her daughter’s school via Twitter.

“I never, ever expected to find out via Twitter that there had been a teacher at that school that had abused a child — that’s not OK,” she said.

“I just couldn’t believe it, we were just in shock.

“They just completely swept it under the rug and just negated what’s happened.”

The mother said she had kept her daughter home from school on Wednesday and was not sure she would send her back.

Mr Hinch entered the Senate with the plan to have has longstanding campaign for a public sex offender registry in Australia become a legislative reality.

“Americans have had this system for 20 years,” he told news.com.au in July.

“Bill Clinton brought it in around 1996 and called it Megan’s Law after Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered by a convicted sex offender.

“I’ve interviewed her mother, Maureen, in a little town called Hamilton, New Jersey ... The American system is so good that they even have an app.”

However, opponents of the American system believe it encourages vigilantism.

“I don’t want people putting big red signs in front of a person’s house reading: ‘Warning: Sex predator lives here’,” he said.

“I’m not a vigilante, I loathe vigilantism. The only people I’ve ever blocked on my website are people who are advocating killing paedophiles.”