Child sex abuse royal commission focuses on elite school

The Australian
November 19, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/child-sex-abuse-royal-commission-focuses-on-elite-school/story-e6frg6nf-1227128164445

SIX teachers at Hobart’s elite Hutchins boy school engaged in sexual abuse of, or inappropriate conduct involving, young students in the 1960s, a royal commission has heard.

The allegations, and complaints of cover-up and stonewalling by the Anglican school, were detailed during a hearing earlier today of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

In response, counsel for the exclusive school, Neil Clelland QC, told the commission it now accepted that four former students due to give evidence “were sexually abused by members of staff in the 1960s”.

“The current (school) board wishes to apologise for the hurt and distress caused,” Mr Clelland told the commission.

Mr Clelland also offered a particular apology to a victim, known only as AOA, for the school’s failure to adequately respond to his claims that he was groomed and sexually abused by the school’s then-headmaster David Ralph Lawrence.