Giving evidence into the hearing into the state-run Parramatta Girls Training School and the Institution for Girls, Hay, Ms Alexander said she was reassured the state government was considering redress for victims and needed to learn from its mistakes. “There is history that mustn’t be repeated or forgotten around large institutional care,” she said. However she told the hearing before Justice Peter McClellan she was aware of recent cases where children had died from physical abuse while in care and children who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their carers. Simon Benson, representing some of the former residents of Parramatta Girls and Hay, asked Ms Alexander if she was aware of children who had died while in care. “In the last year . . . the number of children who died from physical abuse was under five,’’ she said.

When asked by Justice McClellan whether she was aware of children who had been sexually abused while in foster care she replied yes, but was unable to give an exact number. She told the hearing she was aware of cases where young people in care had sexually abused each other. She also knew of lack of supervision in residential care homes. About three per cent of the state’s 18,000 children in care live in residential care homes in groups of four to six. Ms Alexander told the hearing that the children were aged as young as 12 and were under the supervision of only one staff member overnight at times.

“I can think of times where that has happened but . . . residential care and the staffing is not really my area of work so I’m not exactly sure of the ratios,” she said. “I certainly think you would have more than one wherever possible.” She said some children could spend years in residential care but were visited by independent case workers relatively frequently. Ms Alexander described the screening process for carers as rigorous, including working with children checks, police checks and face-to-face interviews but agreed there were still predators who slip through the net. “There are still people who sail through a screening process because they have no prior records,” she said.

She said the department still struggled to investigate all cases of child abuse but said the most serious instances were being addressed. “NSW has the capacity to get to its most worrying reports that come into our system but we are not getting to all of them,’’ she said. Breaking down in the witness box, Ms Alexander praised the former residents of Parramatta and Hay for their courage in speaking up about their abuse. “You have renewed our determination to make sure such cruelty never happens again,” she said. She said she was reassured that the state government was looking at redress for the women who were residents of state-run homes.

In the final day of the hearing, Chief executive of Juvenile Justice NSW, Valda Rusis, said her department had been asked to examine the issue of redress by the Department of Premier and Cabinet.