Former Knox Grammar Head: Pupil Who Reported Sex Abuse Was a "Drama Boy"

By Bridie Jabour
The Guardian
March 2, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/03/former-knox-grammar-head-pupil-who-reported-sex-abuse-was-a-drama-boy

Dr Ian Paterson appears as a witness at the royal commission on Tuesday. Photograph: Royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse

A former Knox Grammar school headmaster did not believe a student who complained a teacher inappropriately touched him because he was a “drama boy”, an inquiry has heard.

Ian Paterson, who was headmaster at the prestigious Sydney school for more than three decades at a time when there were multiple allegations of child sex abuse, took the stand at the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse on Tuesday.

He began his evidence with a statement apologising to the victims of child sex abuse at the school but when questioned by counsel assisting the commission, David Lloyd, he said he did not know about the sex abuse at the time and was aware of only one complaint.

The inquiry heard that a student came to Paterson in the late 1980s to complain a teacher, Damian Vance, had touched him inappropriately and asked him to engage in mutual masturbation. Paterson told the boy to go to the library and “think about what he was alleging”, he told the inquiry.

“He was a drama boy,” Paterson said as explanation for why he did not immediately believe the boy.

Paterson said he eventually believed him and counselled Vance but said he did not report it to police. “I was not aware it was a crime,” he said.

Paterson gave Vance a reference when he left Knox but said it had a code in it that signalled there was “more to say” on Vance because Paterson had written at the end he was happy to be contacted to discuss the reference further.

Paterson said it had not occurred to him the reference would be used by Vance to get another job as a teacher.

He also conceded he took more seriously allegations another teacher was giving senior boys alcohol and cigarettes than allegations he was molesting boys. He said he had since undergone a cultural change since the 1980s and now recognised the seriousness of child abuse allegations.

The inquiry has been told that in 1988 a man in a Knox tracksuit and balaclava groped a 14-year-old boy’s genitals while he slept in a boarding house before running away when the boy raised the alarm. Paterson conceded it was a matter of days to weeks before he and others came to the conclusion it must have been a teacher but the police were not informed.

Christ Fotis was the teacher suspected of the groping and he was eventually dismissed after being caught masturbating in a car outside the school.

Fotis, who was a Knox old boy, had been convicted of molesting two girls before he was hired at Knox but the school did not run a criminal check on him.

Paterson denied it was a failure not to run criminal checks on potential staff.

“The times were quite different then. We judged people very much ourselves by making our own judgments on people. I would not consider that a failure,” he said.

Paterson also wrote Fotis a positive reference when he left the school saying he was “enthusiastic for his job” and “meticulous in the standards he requires from students”.

He conceded the reference was “grossly inappropriate”.

At the beginning of his evidence Paterson apologised for what he was “not aware of” at the time.

“As headmaster I am responsible for all that occurs during my headmastership, there were matters that I knew about and other matters that I did not however, without doubt I should have known and I should have stopped the events which led to the abuse and its tragic consequences for those boys in my care and their families,” he said.

He commended the courage of the victims who have come forward and acknowledged there would be victims who had not spoken out.

“An apology seems totally inadequate but I do so with an awful feeling of uselessness in my heart,” Paterson read from a statement. “... I accept decisions I made were wrong and I failed to recognise, and hence respond sufficiently to, events we now know were indicators of a sinister and much bigger picture, a picture of serious sexual abuse which would damage the lives of so many,” he said.

“This is a source of intense pain for me and my family. I am deeply and profoundly sorry.”

Knox was criticised on Monday after purple ribbons tied to its gates in tribute to victims of child sex abuse at the school were removed. Knox released a statement on Tuesday saying a security guard unaware of their significance had taken down the ribbons and that they had been retied to the gates.