James Griffin’s boss breaks down amid claims paedophile ‘manipulated’ a ward in disarray

The boss of paedophile nurse, James Geoffrey Griffin, says the “dysfunctional” nature of Launceston General Hospital’s children’s ward created opportunities for the abuser to strike.

Sonja Leonard was Jim Griffin’s boss for an entire decade.

The pair had a friendly working relationship.

For years, the Launceston General Hospital children’s ward nurse unit manager saw how Griffin hugged his young patients and referred to them as “baby”, “babe” or “princess”.

Griffin also committed a number of “boundary violations” over the years – like cuddling a child on a recliner and giving his phone number to patients.

But the complaints system at the hospital was unclear – and often undocumented.

The first port of call on the paediatric ward 4K was to notify Ms Leonard.

But as she admitted before the child sexual abuse commission of inquiry on Wednesday, she had “a negative relationship with a lot of staff on the ward”.

Ms Leonard also admitted the culture on the paediatric 4K ward was “complicated” and “dysfunctional”, and that there was a practice of keeping complaints “in-house”.

She said she “couldn’t recall” whether it took until 2017 – just two years before Griffin was charged with numerous child sexual abuse offences, and then died by suicide – to tell him the behaviour was inappropriate.

At that point, Ms Leonard drafted a letter with the support of the hospital’s human resources department to inform Griffin “this is not the first instance of a complaint of this nature” and “external agencies have been made aware”.

Ms Leonard began crying as she claimed her team had been “manipulated” by a paedophile who took advantage of a ward in disarray.

“The culture and the conflict and the undermining that was going on in the ward at the time, unfortunately, were a perfect storm for Mr Griffin to take advantage of,” she said.

“I have a lot to learn, as we all do.

“I feel deep, deep, deeply that we were deceived, we were manipulated, and we were sold a version of Mr Griffin that he wanted us to believe.”

Also on Wednesday, former human resources consultant Luigino Fratangelo said he couldn’t remember meeting with whistleblower and hospital social worker Kylee Pearn in 2011 when she raised the alarm that Griffin was a paedophile.

Mr Fratangelo said he couldn’t remember if he advised Ms Pearn that Griffin couldn’t be removed from 4K unless he had a conviction.

But he admitted if he had met Ms Pearn, he would have told her to go to police, and that he understood under the state service code of conduct, suspending a staff member required a conviction.

The inquiry also heard that Griffin was the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation delegate for the 4K ward for 16 years.

Tasmanian branch secretary Emily Shepherd told the commission the union had “no knowledge” of his offending until after his 2019 death.

“It was absolutely shocking to the ANMF that an ANMF delegate had these allegations against him,” she said.

The commission of inquiry will continue its Launceston hearings until July 8.

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