Former Child Protection district director Garfield Willoughby Prowse jailed for sexually abusing two children
January 25, 2024 · By Daryna Zadvirna for www.abc.net.au
Garfield Willoughby Prowse was found guilty of a dozen child sexual abuse charges. ( ABC News: Daryna Zadvirna )
Former Child Protection district director Garfield Willoughby Prowse jailed for sexually abusing two children
A former boss at WA’s Department of Child Protection has been jailed after sexually abusing two children for years.
Garfield Willoughby Prowse, 59, was sentenced to nine years in prison on Wednesday, after a jury found him guilty of a dozen child abuse offences, including four counts of sexual penetration.
The abuse took place between 2010 and 2018 – a period for the majority of which Prowse was working at the DCP.
His victims, a boy and a girl, were aged around five and six when the offending first started, but were not under the care of the department.
Most of the offending happened at the children’s homes, including the shower.
The boy was aged between five and 10 over the course of the abuse and Prowse sexually penetrated the girl when she was six and seven.
Garfield Willoughby Prowse will be eligible for parole in seven years. ( ABC News: Daryna Zadvirna )
The District Court was told Prowse had migrated from the UK, where he was a social worker, helping the local child sex assault squad with interviewing victims.
He began working for WA’s Department of Child Protection as a social worker when his family moved to Perth and was eventually promoted to a district director in 2012.
He left his post in 2015 and took on a role with the Australian Border Force for several years.
‘Trusted figure’
Prosecutor Chadd Graham said Prowse’s work with the police and child services put him in a unique position to know the acute impact his offending would have on young children.
“And he was offending while representing himself in the community as a trusted figure,” he said.
Mr Graham also described Prowse’s offending as a “gross and continual breach of trust” of his victims for the purpose of his sexual gratification.
According to the girl’s victim statement, Prowse had made her feel as though the offending was her fault.
She said he took away her childhood and it could never be recovered, adding that his offending impacted her mental health, sleep and schooling.
Meanwhile, the boy wrote that Prowse had made him a “miserable child” in his impact statement.
He said that he could not trust people that he should as a result of the abuse, and that having a shower was a challenging experience for him each and every day.
Prowse’s lawyer Bernard Standish said his client suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and also had complex regional pain syndrome from a knee injury.
When arguing against a prison term, Mr Standish said those conditions required Prowse to be on various medications – including medicinal cannabis – which he would not be able to access while in jail.
Judge Lisa Toovey accepted that due to his medical conditions, Prowse’s time in custody would be more onerous than others.
However, she said that an immediate term of imprisonment was the only appropriate sentence.
“Your offending has had a profound impact on each of them (the victims),” she said.
“They should have been safe … like all children in the department of which you were a director of.”
Prowse will be eligible for parole in seven years.
