Following a spate of public accounts from many Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel (serving, and former serving, and trainees) who had complained about receiving systemic personal abuse while in the ADF, Australia’s then Minister for Defence Senator the Hon. David Johnston and the then Attorney General Senator the Hon George Brandis QC, on 12th November 2012 established The Defence Abuse Response Taskforce (DART).
DART was set up to provide Defence personnel who had complained of physical abuse, sexual abuse, harassment or bullying whilst in the ADF, with a Government sanctioned avenue for resolution through counselling, reparation payment, participation in a restorative engagement process and other more traditional means, such as administrative sanctions or criminal action.
DART considered as many as 2,439 complaints and found 1,751 to be within its scope and plausible. Mr Julian Knight, who as a former Army Officer Staff Cadet of Royal Military College Duntroon in 1987 was one of them.
The following internal hyperlink below opens the comprehensive sworn personal account by Mr Julian Knight to DART of before, during, and after – his officer training experience at Duntroon from January to July 1987. Be mindful that the Hoddle Street Shooting took place just days later on 9th August 1987. He formally submitted it as evidence of abuse to DART on 26th November 2013.
This sworn legal statement is highly detailed factual account by Julian Knight of some 97 pages in length (click on link below):
Duntroon Staff Cadet Julian Knight submission to DART 2013 (protected).pdf
.and these are the relevant attachments included in that submission:
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Open in new tab The above photo taken by a mate shows Staff Cadet Julian Knight outside RMC Duntroon Military Hospital on Tuesday 17th March 1987 having a cigarette. It shows his left lower arm in a plaster cast after having been medically treated for “severe ligament damage in the dorsum of the left wrist” from been bashed and kicked on college campus by five senior cadets of RMC’s Kapyong Company as part of a regular Hogwarts-esk ‘bishing‘ assault. [Read pages 21-23].
