|
Knox Grammar: Master quit over suspected pedophile’s appointment
By Ean Higgins
BOYS from Knox Grammar roared with approval when their headmaster touched a young girl who was taking part in a school musical, an inquiry has heard. Lucy Perry, who now heads an international women’s health charity, told the child abuse royal commission she was indecently assaulted by the elite Sydney boys school’s former head Ian Paterson in 1989, when she was 15. Ms Perry, chief executive of Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia (Australia), said the assault happened in full view of students at the Knox school hall and the boys who saw it “roared with approval”. She reported the assault to NSW police in 2009, when allegations about sexual abuse at Knox were emerging. Ms Perry’s school, Roseville College, and Knox Grammar had been jointly staging the musical `Guys and Dolls’. During one rehearsal, Dr Paterson, who the show’s producer, singled her out, the commission heard today. As she walked to the edge of the stage “he placed his hand on my backside”. “I would describe it as between a pat and a grope,” Ms Perry told the commission. “He then slid his hand right down to cup my buttocks and (I) felt him touch my genitals outside of my clothing.” Ms Perry continued: “I was humiliated in front of the boys and I heard the boys cheering. “I was disgusted with Paterson’s behaviour and thought he was demonstrating to the Knox boys that it was perfectly acceptable, even admirable, to be disrespectful to girls.” Ms Perry’s evidence came after a police report was tendered in evidence to the commission, “Ms Perry stated that it only lasted a few seconds and that she stepped forward to remove his hand,” the statement says. “At the time, Perry was wearing a leotard and fishnet stockings. Perry is unaware if the incident was witnessed by anyone else.” Ms Perry, now 41, wasn’t interested in pressing charges against Dr Paterson but changed her mind in 2009. “I wanted to let police know that I was happy to provide a statement if it was going to be useful to demonstrate the culture of disrespect engendered by the school and to highlight the environment and attitudes fostered by the headmaster,” she said. Dr Paterson’s solicitor Jim Harrowell asked her if the headmaster was just positioning her on the stage. “I would suggest to you Mr Harrowell that positioning girls by their bottoms is not the best way to do that,” she said. Ms Perry was applauded by Knox victims and their supporters as she left the hearing in Sydney. Earlier today, David Lloyd, counsel assisting the commission, said there was no evidence to support an allegation made during evidence on Friday that James Mein - the former moderator of the Uniting Church - and solicitor Rob Wannan - former chair of the Knox council - were involved in the destruction of sensitive documents. The inquiry has heard evidence that Dr Paterson did not report a single incident of sexual abuse to police in the nearly 30 years he was headmaster. Ms Perry told the commission after one earlier rehearsal, Dr Paterson had told her and a boy when they were backstage, “You and you, you’re out,” but she nonetheless returned to the next rehearsal, and was allowed back in the production. “Let’s hope they behave from now on,” she said Dr Paterson said. It was after that, when Dr Paterson asked her to demonstrate to other girls how she came on stage in a “sultry” fashion for a scene in the show set as a strip club, that the alleged indecent assault occurred, she said. When Mr Harrowell again put to Ms Perry that nothing improper had occurred, she said: “You are paid to suggest he didn’t do that.” When Mr Harrowell put to her that no witnesses, including her schoolfriends at the time, could back up her story, Ms Perry said: “It was my bottom being touched, not my friends’,” . Asked by the counsel assisting the inquiry, David Lloyd, why she had decided to appear at the Commission, Ms Perry said there was no other Royal Commission than the one on the subject in question that she would prefer to assist. While she had recovered from the alleged event without damage, Ms Perry said, she hoped she could help the Commission “build a story about what the culture was at Knox.” Earlier today the general duties matter at Knox who investigated pedophile teacher Adrian Nisbett said he was shocked in 1990 to find Dr Paterson had given Nisbett a position in a Knox boarding house, four years after he had been removed from contact with students. The Royal Commission this morning heard further evidence from Stuart Pearson, a former policeman, who held the general duties job at the Sydney private school in the 1980s. Mr Pearson said Dr Paterson had initially discouraged him from investigating Nisbett, who among other improper actions against students, had rubbed boys in a sexual fashion in his darkroom. Nisbett was arrested in 2009 and convicted of two counts of category 4 sexual assault. Mr Pearson’s report to Dr Paterson in 1986 on Nisbett found a “pattern of behaviour”, and recommended he be removed from roles in which he would have contact with students, and Mr Paterson took actions to this effect. But he discovered in 1990 that Mr Paterson had reversed this move, making Nisbett the housemaster or resident master of one of the Knox boarding houses. Mr Pearson said that was one reason why he resigned from Knox that year. In evidence last week, the current headmaster of Knox, John Weeks, said when he arrived to take up the position, he heard rumours that Nisbett had been a “protected species” under a previous headmaster. Dr Weeks faced considerable cross-examination last week on why he never sacked another pedophile teacher, Craig Treloar. Treloar was arrested while still teaching and coaching sports in 2009, several years after Mr Weeks took up the headmastership and two years after Mr Pearson had advised him about Treloar and sent him the pornographic video he had caught Treloar showing to a student. In addition, Mr Weeks waited three years after receiving a private investigator’s report on Nisbett before reporting him to police. Nisbett was arrested in 2009 and convicted of two counts of category 4 sexual assault. Speaking to journalists after giving evidence last week, Mr Weeks disputed whether the information Mr Pearson gave him about Treloar had detailed specific allegations that Treloar had, unclothed, asked the boy to perform a sexual act on him. Mr Pearson said he did convey that allegation to Mr Weeks, in discussions with him, but agreed under cross-examination this morning that in a covering letter sending him the pornographic video in 2007, he had not, in that letter, detailed the sexual allegations. Mr Pearson also came under fierce attack from the lawyer representing Dr Paterson, Jim Harrowell, over what he had originally told the headmaster in 1986 when, Mr Pearson said in his evidence, a student had come to him in tears. Mr Pearson told the inquiry the boy had told him Treloar had plied him with alcohol, shown the video and asked him to perform a sex act on him, which he refused to do. Mr Harrowell put to Mr Pearson that he had only told Dr Paterson of the video, not the proposed sexual act, an assertion Mr Pearson strongly rejected. Mr Harrowell: “Mr Pearson, I would suggest to you that with the passage of time your story about what happened on that day has been progressively made up.” Mr Pearson: “Well, that’s a strong allegation.” Mr Harrowell: “It is a strong allegation.” Mr Pearson: “And I certainly deny it.” The counsel assisting the Commission, David Lloyd, read out a section of the covering letter Mr Pearson had sent with the video to Mr Weeks in 2007. “In any event I investigated the matter within an hour or so after the alleged incident. The boy was shaken but his version of events was strong and credible and it was clear to me that Treloar had attempted to have a sexual encounter with this lad.” Under questioning by Royal Commissioner Atkinson as to why not one alleged incident of sexual abuse had been reported to police when he was at Knox, he said that rested with Dr Paterson, who had given orders that only he would make such decisions. “I came to form the view that he was more interested in protecting the school than in protecting the students,” Mr Pearson said. Mr Lloyd does not intend to recommend a finding they were involved. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse inquiry into Knox continues on Tuesday.
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.