A judge and top legal academic has been charged after allegedly inadvertently showing child abuse material during a lecture at a university in Melbourne.
Justice Alan Boulton, 74, allegedly accidentally displaced the material to a class at Monash University on February 5, sparking a police investigation that led to his home in Middle Park being raided a week later.
Police seized multiple electronic devices from that address, and detectives from the Melbourne Sexual Offence and Child Abuse Investigation Team then executed a search warrant in Sydney’s eastern suburbs where more devices were seized.
The former Senior Deputy President of the Fair Work Commission will now appear at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday after being charged with one count of possess child abuse material as a federal offence, and two other counts of possessing child abuse material, the Herald Sun reported.
Monash University said Justice Boulton, who was teaching a course on international labour law, was immediately suspended and removed from all teaching duties after the incident, and is providing students who allegedly saw the material with support services.
“The safety and wellbeing of our students, staff and broader community remains our highest priority,” a spokesperson said.
Justice Boulton has a long and distinguished legal career, and in 1979 was appointed as the first-time legal officer of the Australian Council of Trade Unions by then-ACTU President Bob Hawke, who went on to be Prime Minister four years later.
He was also the President of the Industrial Relations Commission of Victoria, President of the Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal, was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2002, and is known as a collector of Chinese porcelain and 19th Century French Spelter lamps and statues.
According to an online profile he worked for the International Labour Organisation in Manila and Jakarta where he developed programs on child labour, industrial relations, and migrant workers.
Header image: Justice Alan Boulton (Supplied).
