Police spokeswoman Leonie Johnson said Donald Cornell, who was a bus driver at the Orthodox Adass Israel School in Elsternwick and Melbourne's [Chabad] Yeshivah Centre, was charged with six counts of indecent assault on March 19. The offences date from the late 1980s and are alleged to have been committed against a 15-year-old girl.
Jewish school bus driver charged
Jared Lynch • The Age
A former bus driver for several Melbourne Jewish schools will face court on Friday [May 17 – FailedMessiah.com] over child abuse allegations from more than 20 years ago.
Police spokeswoman Leonie Johnson said Donald Cornell, who was a bus driver at the Orthodox Adass Israel School in Elsternwick and Melbourne's [Chabad] Yeshivah Centre, was charged with six counts of indecent assault on March 19. The offences date from the late 1980s and are alleged to have been committed against a 15-year-old girl.
Chief executive of victim advocate group Tzedek Manny Waks said Mr Cornell, who is not Jewish, was charged as part of investigations that began two years ago about child abuse in the Jewish community.…
[Cornell’s court appearance scheduled for today has been postponed to May 17 due to illness. – FailedMessiah.com]
Melbourne's Jewish community has been rocked by child sexual abuse allegations in the past two years. Allegations have been made against two employees of Yeshivah College. Former security guard David Cyprys will stand trial in July over 41 charges of child rape and other sexual abuse against 12 students in the 1980s, and former Yeshivah teacher David Kramer was extradited from the US late last year over claims that he abused four boys at the college between 1989 and 1992. [Kramer pleaded guilty earlier this month. – FailedMessiah.com]
Meanwhile, former Adass Israel girls' school principal Malka Leifer fled to Israel in 2008 after allegations that she abused several girls.
Victoria's Human Rights Commission is also investigating a complaint by Mr Waks' father, Zephaniah Waks, that he has been shunned by the Orthodox Jewish community because of his son's anti-abuse campaign.
Update 6-9-2014 – The case against Cornell has been dropped, and police were apparently ordered to pay Cornell's court costs. Cornell was allegedly beaten up sometime after being charged (perhaps by members of the Adass community, although this is not clear) and apparently suffered a brain injury that left him unable to stand trial, a source in Melbourne told FailedMessiah.com.