Royal Commission To Hold Public Hearing For Knox Grammar Child Abuse Investigation

By Sounak Mukhopadhyay
International Business Times
February 22, 2015

http://au.ibtimes.com/royal-commission-hold-public-hearing-knox-grammar-child-abuse-investigation-1414755

Australian actor Hugh Jackman poses as he attends the "X-Men: Days of Future Past" world movie premiere in New York May 10, 2014.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse said on Thursday that there would be a wide ranging public hearing into how the exclusive Sydney private school had responded to inappropriate conduct by teachers towards students from 1970 to 2012.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the hearings will include the experience of sexual abuse of former students at the school, the regulatory system governing the school’s response to allegations of child sexual abuse by its employees and the response of the Uniting Church and the school to concerns about inappropriate conduct. The Royal Commission will also investigate the systems, policies and procedures in place at the school since 1970, by which sexual abuse concerns were raised and responded to.

Former students as well as the school will give evidence from Feb. 23 about how the abuse could have gone unnoticed for such a long period. One of the cases of abuse was overlooked for over 20 years. The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing before the case study into Knox Grammar. The public hearing will be held at the Yeshivah Colleges in Melbourne and in Bondi, in Sydney's east. While the Royal Commission’s investigation is expected to end up in criminal proceedings, Knox Grammar has admitted that it never dismissed its responsibility.

Knox is located on Sydney's Upper North Shore. Prominent actors and former prime ministers have been the alumni of the school. Some of the major former students of the school include actor Hugh Jackman, former Macquarie Bank chairman David Clarke and ethicist Simon Longstaff.

ABC News reports that four men pleaded guilty to abusing students at the school in 2009 and 2010. Adrian Nisbett was suspended in 2010 for molesting boys in 1976 and 1986. Former teacher Craig Treloar was jailed in the same year for abusing four boys aged from 11 to 13 between 1986 and 1987. It was revealed that the men found guilty of the offences had continued teaching even after the abuse.