THE BEAUMONT CHILDREN and ADELAIDE OVAL ABDUCTION 

Today, January 26, we of course turn our thoughts more than we do most days to the family of the Beaumont Children and the 1966 abduction from Glenelg Beach.

I'm asked quite constantly if I believe the two cases are connected. Surprising to many, it is a fairly definitive NO that I can offer.

That the cases are so similar - multiple children abducted together and in the same city - has set plenty on the course of believing they must have been performed by the same culprit.

But, apart from being of a similar nature and with the real likelihood the abductors in each were known to each other/the same pedophile network... I can find only the smallest, most insignificant links between the Beaumont case and the Adelaide Oval case when examining not just Stan Hart but all the other "usual suspects" for both crimes.

We can put the Marshall family living in the heart of Glenelg in 1966 and family members around the age of the children/witnessed persons of interest for the Beaumont case.... but no other documented links to individuals or even the suburb.

Inspector Colin Lehmann, in the segment of an article printed 4 days after the Adelaide Oval abduction - at a time following the police interview of Stan Hart - made it known what police thought of any potential link at the time.

I consider the constant quest of the broader public to link the two crimes because they are similar in nature has been to the detriment of the investigations. It provides an easy avenue for detectives to dismiss key information when the jigsaw pieces don't line up.

It has proved difficult enough to solve the cases in isolation - for starters, the best of SA POLICE had 7 years to work on the Beaumont case before the Adelaide Oval abduction.

While the individuals who abducted the Beaumont children in 1966 and Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon from Adelaide Oval in 1973 are almost certainly different people.... there is growing evidence, and a steady flow of child sex abuse victims from that era coming forward to support the notion of a hierarchy in South Australia which protected such individuals - King pins of an established pedophile network.

The objection of Premier Don Dunstan to retaining capital punishment for child abductors has been left in for "context" around how pedophiles were perhaps viewed in society at the time. I'm pretty sure the death penalty, if enacted on a child abductor, would have been a "uniquely effective deterrent" for the individual!

Thoughts are with the Beaumont family members, friends and the public deeply impacted by this and so many other crimes against children.

#adelaideovalabduction