Pedophile headmaster, teacher at elite Hobart school fled to escape arrest

By Matthew Denholm
Australian
November 25, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/pedophile-headmaster-teacher-at-elite-hobart-school-fled-to-escape-arrest/story-fngburq5-1227134171254

Retired Tasmanian police commissioner Richard McCreadie this morning.

TWO paedophile senior teachers at an elite Hobart boys’ school fled the country after being informed they would be arrested, a Royal Commission has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse earlier today heard evidence from former Tasmanian police commissioner Richard McCreadie that in 1970 the headmaster and music teacher at Hutchins School both confessed to child abuse.

However, Mr Creadie said that when he returned to the school to arrange for the two to be arrested — a week or two after the confessions — he discovered they had both fled the country.

The retired police chief said no extraditions were sought and that many in the police force at the time believed dealing with “hardened criminals” was more important than pursuing pedophiles.

“We accepted that they had left the country,” he told the commission, which has heard evidence that up to eight teachers at the prestigious Anglican school during the 1960s were pedophiles.

Mr McCreadie, at the time a young detective with Hobart CIB vice squad, said in 1970 a boy aged 16 or 17 had reported to him that while he was student at Hutchins he had repeatedly had sex with then-headmaster David Lawrence.

The boy also reported being sexually abused by the school’s music teacher, Ronald Thomas, while a student.

Mr McCreadie said he sought advice from his superior, detective senior sergeant Leith Viney, about “how I should proceed to investigate what I perceived as the big end of town”.

“Viney told me to proceed with my investigation but to be discrete,” Mr McCreadie told the

commission.

To his surprise, both Lawrence and Thomas immediately confessed their crimes when confronted and he informed them in response that they were likely to be charged at a later date.

He said he did not arrest them immediately because he wanted to discuss the “next steps” and form of charges with Mr Viney.

When he returned to the school, probably about a week or two later, to arrange for them to attend a police station to be arrested, he was told by a secretary that they had left the country – Lawrence for England, and Thomas for South Africa.

The investigation was dropped, no checks were made with immigration authorities to confirm they had left the country and no extraditions were sought. “At that time, it would have been very unusual to extradite anyone from overseas unless they had been charged with murder,” Mr McCreadie said.