Peter Renshaw misled his managers, Commission of Inquiry find

The Commission of Inquiry into Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings found that Dr Renshaw misled the inquiry in his testimony and that he had failed to act on credible abuse complaints by medical practitioners in the hospital over nearly 20 years.

Dr Renshaw, whose name is mentioned over 700 times in the report, misled senior hospital management and the Health Department secretary about the activities of LGH paediatric nurse James Griffin.

During commission hearings last year, Dr Renshaw confirmed he met with Tasmania Police in 2019.

They informed him of child exploitation material found on the phone of James Griffin and requested assistance to assess whether the backgrounds in some of the photographs were the LGH.

They also told him of about an investigation into a sexual relationship that Griffin had with a former child patient of the LGH.

In another meeting with police in October 2019, Dr Renshaw was informed about a complaint by former social worker Kylee Pearn that James Griffin had sexually abused her from age seven.

He was later also informed by his human resources department that other complaints about Griffin had been made years earlier.

In November 2019, Dr Renshaw wrote a memo to Department of Health secretary Kathrine Morgan-Wicks about the events.

In one of the dot points within this memo, Dr Renshaw stated that "Tasmania Police advise that there was no evidence to suggest that any criminal activity had taken place within or connected to the Launceston General Hospital".

In another, he stated that "the LGH had not received any complaints from patients or families regarding inappropriate behaviour by Mr Griffin that would warrant [notifications]."

When questioned, Dr Renshaw denied he had lied in the memo.

According to the inquiry report, Dr Renshaw should have escalated and acted on former social worker Kylee Pearn's disclosure about Griffin once advised about it by Tasmania Police on 29 October, 2019.

The commission also found that he had failed to act on complaints by Zoe Duncan that she'd been abused by a doctor at the LGH.

He also failed to stand down the doctor after hearing the complaint.

During his testimony in 2022, Dr Renshaw said he had not believed Zoe's story.

Zoe Duncan, who suffered from epilepsy, eventually refused to return to the LGH for treatment, and passed away in 2017.

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