Knox Grammar general duties manager...

By Janet Fife-Yeomans
Herald Sun
March 2, 2015

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/knox-grammar-general-duties-manager-put-his-job-on-the-line-to-investigate-protected-paedophile-teacher/story-fnii5s3y-1227244633399

Witness Lucy Perry leaves the Child Sex Abuse Royal Commission today after giving evidence in the Knox Grammer School case.

Former principal of Knox Gammar Dr Ian Paterson has been accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl during a rehearsal for a school play. Photo by Jeremy Piper

Lucy Perry, giving evidence at the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse. Lucy was sexually assaulted by Dr Ian Paterson the former Knox headmaster

Cleveland Street sign at Knox Grammar Prearatory School. Photo by Troy Snook

Former Knox School teacher Adrian Nisbett in South Africa.

Allegations of abuse over decades at Knox Grammar have been aired at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Assault. Photo by Troy Snook

Knox Grammar general duties manager ‘put his job on the line’ to investigate ‘protected’ paedophile teacher

PUPILS at Knox Grammar “roared” with approval when their headmaster Dr Ian Patterson sexually molested a teenage schoolgirl on stage during a school play, it was alleged yesterday.

Retired headmaster Dr Paterson has been accused of sexually assaulting the 15-year-old girl as the investigation by the child sex abuse royal commission into the cover-up of abuse at the elite school widened yesterday.

High-profile charity CEO Lucy Perry told the commission that Dr Paterson molested her on the Knox stage during rehearsals for Guys and Dolls in 1989.

Ms Perry, 41, claimed it was in full view of the Knox boys in the audience, who cheered and “roared”.

“I thought he was demonstrating to the Knox boys that (it) is perfectly acceptable, even admirable, to be disrespectful to girls and was promoting a misogynist attitude,” Ms Perry, chief executive of the famous Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia (Australia) charity, told the commission sitting in Sydney: “They roared with approval.”

Dr Paterson’s police report, tendered to the royal commission, reveals Ms Perry reported the allegation to police in 2009, when the school was the centre of media reports as Strike Force Arika began arresting the first of five serving and former Knox teachers who were later convicted for ­sexually assaulting former pupils, all boys.

Her evidence yesterday sparked a standing ovation.

The commission is investigating 33 years of sexual abuse at the school.

Dr Paterson, due to give evidence today, was headmaster between 1969 and 1998 and has been accused by a number of witnesses of covering up the abuse to protect the school’s reputation.

This is the first allegation that Dr Paterson himself was an abuser.

Ms Perry said she was a pupil at Roseville Girls College when she auditioned for a role in Guys And Dolls. It was during a strip club scene when the girls wore feather boas, leotards and fishnet stockings that she was allegedly assaulted.

She said Dr Paterson said he liked how she walked in a “sultry” way and as the girls turned to walk to the back of the stage and begin the scene again, he put his hand on her backside, which was facing the front of the stage. “I would describe it as between a pat and a grope,” Ms Perry said. “He then slid his hand right down to cup my buttocks and touched my genitals outside of my clothing.”

The lawyer appearing for Dr Paterson, Mr Jim Harrowell, put it to Ms Perry that if Dr Paterson had touched her, it was only for the purpose of putting her in position on the stage.

Ms Perry: “I understand that but you are paid to suggest that he didn’t do that.”