Former Knox master denies blame shifting

Sky News
March 2, 2015

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/2015/03/02/former-knox-master-denies-blame-shifting.html

A key witness at a hearing into Knox Grammar has denied he's trying to shift the blame for poor record keeping onto the former headmaster Ian Paterson.

Stuart Pearson, the former general duties master at the elite north shore Sydney boys' school, reiterated his allegation Dr Paterson had lied when he said he had reported to police that an intruder wearing a balaclava had sexually assaulted a boy in 1988.

Solicitor Jim Harrowell, representing Dr Paterson cross-examined Mr Pearson, a former policeman, for more than an hour.

In a terse exchange he asked Mr Pearson if when he was a policeman he had a problem with record keeping and complained about the need to keep a lot of documents.

Mr Pearson replied that had happened in 1981 and bore no relationship to his tenure at Knox.

He said he was not suspended from the police force but resigned for health reasons.

The commission is investigating why Knox has very few records of complaints of the sexual abuse of students and the school's response.

Mr Harrowell: 'So you are suggesting your failure to keep copies of relevant documents at Knox was purely because Dr Paterson and not because you were inclined not to keep those documents.'

Mr Pearson: 'Some documents I kept copies, others I did not'.

He said he would not have kept the most sensitive documents because the protocol at Knox was that those went to the headmaster.

He said in the case of one teacher, Adrian Nisbett, the headmaster had stipulated that all documents be given to him.

Mr Pearson who was head of discipline at Knox, said earlier on Monday that one of the reasons he quit Knox in 1990 was because Dr Paterson had reappointed Nisbett as a housemaster.

Four years previously he had investigated allegations that Nisbett was molesting boys by cupping their genitals and rubbing up against them in the school's darkroom.

In 2010 Nisbett was convicted of two counts of committing acts of indecency on Knox boys in the 1980s and released on a good behaviour bond.

Mr Pearson said he left Knox in 1990 for a variety of reasons, including the fact he had lost confidence in Dr Paterson because of Nisbett and other issues.

He said by then his confidence in Dr Paterson had broken down 'and I think it was mutually reciprocated'.

He also said Dr Paterson had been reluctant to let him investigate Nisbett.