The former principal of a Queensland primary school where a teacher sexually abused 13 girls has said he never reported any complaints to police or child protection officers.

Terence Hayes is appearing at the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse in Brisbane.

The hearing is examining how Hayes, and the Catholic primary school he once ran, handled reports of child sex abuse by teacher Gerard Byrnes.

Hayes was a teacher for 26 years, and a principal for six years, before he first heard abuse complaints about Byrnes by schoolgirls in 2007.

The counsel assisting, Andrew Naylor, asked Hayes if he had ever made any mandatory reports under child protection procedures, policies or legislation since the first complaint in September 2007.

“No, I had not,” Hayes replied.

“In the entire time you had been principal?” Naylor clarified.

“No, I had not,” Hayes said.

Earlier Hayes’s former deputy, Megan Wagstaff, was asked if she had been properly equipped to deal with the issue of child sexual abuse in 2007 and 2008.

“No I wasn’t,” she said.

The hearing was adjourned until later on Tuesday.

On Monday, the commission heard Hayes and the school’s student protection officer, Catherine Long, first heard a complaint from a schoolgirl in September 2007.

During a meeting with the girl’s father, Hayes said he would deal with Byrnes internally. He did report the matter to the Catholic Education Office, but neither Hayes nor Long told police or other parents.

The commission heard that if they had acted, other girls would have been spared abuse.

Byrnes continued teaching at the school until he was arrested in November 2008. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2010 after pleading guilty to 44 child sex abuse charges.