Australian parliament to hear report on brutality at HMAS Leeuwin base

Allegations that child sailors at an Australian navy training base were raped or brutalised in the 1980s were so serious they would be raised in a paper to parliament, a report said yesterday.

An inquiry into abuse in the military has received 2,400 complaints, but the head of the investigation said claims of shocking treatment at HMAS Leeuwin in Western Australia in the 1980s warranted a separate report, The Australian newspaper said.

There also would be a separate report on claims that more than 70 young officer cadets at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra suffered sexual or other abuse.

Australia established a defence forces abuse response task force in 2012 to hear complaints after a deeper investigation detailed many hundreds of claims of sexual or other abuse in the forces from the 1950s to the present day.

The head of the task force, retired judge Len Roberts-Smith, previously had described some of the stories as horrific but told The Australian he would wait for the overall investigation to be completed before deciding on whether to recommend a royal commission.