Criminologist Professor Paul Wilson accused of sex abuse

ONE of Australia's chief crime sleuths Professor Paul Wilson has been accused of sexually abusing two young girls 38 years ago.

The alleged victims claimed the renowned criminologist inappropriately touched them at his Brisbane home in 1974 when he was aged 33 and they were friends of his daughter, The Gold Coast Bulletin reports.

One of the girls, now aged in her 40s, reported the abuse last year and a subsequent police investigation uncovered the second alleged victim.

Both women have provided police with detailed statements.

Professor Wilson, 71, who has been living in Singapore, arrived back in Brisbane yesterday, declaring he would fight the allegations that threaten to destroy his career as one of the country's most respected criminology academics and revered authors.

During a police raid on Professor Wilson's Gold Coast home in October last year, a number of photographs belonging to the ex-head of Bond University school of criminology were seized by detectives.

Leading criminal lawyer Bill Potts said yesterday his client would "fight the allegations" which allege Professor Wilson was working at the University of Queensland when he allegedly assaulted the two girls at his home around the time of the 1974 Queensland floods.

Although detectives are yet to interview him, charges could be laid as early as next week.

Bond University vice-chancellor Tim Brailsford said Professor Wilson left the institution in June 2011.

"The university was unaware of the allegations and this is a matter for Professor Wilson and the authorities," Professor Brailsford said.

Professor Wilson is still featured on the Bond University website, although several of his key papers relating to abuse have been removed.

In 2003 he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to education, particularly as a writer and lecturer in the field of criminology. In 2008, he was nominated for National Lecturer of the Year.

He has co-authored or authored 30 books and hundreds of articles or reports mainly in the areas of miscarriages of justice, violence and violence prevention and, most recently, mass crimes of atrocity.

As well as being one of Australia's foremost criminologists who has campaigned against the "fervour" surrounding child abuse, he has spent a lot of time during his career exploring the nature of evil - whether people can be inherently evil or whether they just commit evil acts.

"An evil act is where someone applies considerable violence to deliberately hurt another human being and enjoys doing that and he or she does that for ideological or personal or religious reasons," he says.

Many of his works touch on child sex abuse. In his book Life Of Crime, Professor Wilson said that in the "sizeable majority of incidents" adolescents were sexually provocative.

"My findings were remarkably similar to studies in California and Scandinavia which suggest child victims of adult sex offenders are generally willing or active participants, and that they not infrequently initiate the sexual relationship," he wrote.

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