Former Knox Headmaster Ian Paterson Apologises to Abused Students

The Australian
March 2, 2015

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/former-knox-headmaster-ian-paterson-apologises-to-abused-students/story-e6frg6n6-1227246104880

THE former long-serving headmaster of Knox Grammar, Ian Paterson, admitted he had been told one of his teachers was showing pornographic videos to children and another had propositioned a boy for sex but he failed to report this to police because he did not believe a crime had been committed.

Appearing at a Royal Commission hearing, Dr Paterson issued a sweeping apology for failing to protect students from child sexual abuse by teachers over the three decades he was principal.

Dr Paterson rejected evidence by Stuart Pearson, a former policeman who was general duties master at the school, that in 1987, he told the headmaster a boy had revealed teacher Craig Treloar had, in the teacher’s quarters, partially undressed, and asked the boy to perform a sexual act on him, which he refused.

Dr Paterson said he had only been told by Mr Pearson that Treloar had been caught playing a pornographic video with the boy present, and nothing more.

He denied that Mr Pearson had come to his office and reported the more serious allegations.

Dr Paterson also denied that Mr Pearson had given him two documents, a statement taken from the boy’s evidence, and a report the former policeman had prepared himself about Treloar.

Dr Paterson admitted he had asked no further questions of Treloar, the boy, or Mr Pearson, initiated no investigation, and did not call the police.

“It was not a failure at the time ... I was given evidence at the time, and I acted on that evidence,” he said, telling the commission that he believed he had acted entirely appropriately at the time.

Dr Paterson suspended Treloar for six months, but he was still teaching at Knox and coaching sports teams when he was arrested in 2009.

Treloar was convicted in 2010 of three counts of indecent assault on a person under the age of 16 and under his authority, and once count of inciting a person under the age of 16 years to commit an act of gross indecency, and received a two year minimum jail term.

Dr Paterson, in his early testimony to the inquiry this morning, said he was unaware of any such incidents before one involving a teacher in 1989.

This contradicted evidence of Mr Pearson, who said he had in the mid to late 1980s reported sexual abuse by two other teachers, and a suspicion about a third.

Under cross-examination, Dr Paterson said that when he had been told by one 15-year-old student that the teacher had touched him in an inappropriate fashion on the bottom while the two smoked under the chapel, and made a sexual advance on him, he had told the boy to go to the library and think about what he had said.

“The boy was a drama boy ... who could build up situations,” Dr Paterson said.

Paterson ‘touched me on bottom’

The teacher, Damien Vance, admitted the misconduct to Dr Paterson but, Dr Paterson said, he saw no need to report Vance to police or child protection authorities, and had not thought a crime had been committed.

“No, I am not aware that that was a matter for the police, or was a crime,” he said.

Dr Paterson allowed Vance to resign rather than be sacked, and later wrote him a favourable reference.

He admitted he kept no note on Vance’s inappropriate action in the school records, nor any report from the student.

Dr Paterson said as far as he knew the school provided no training to teachers on mandatory reporting laws which came into force in January 1988, a breach of which can lead to a sentence of up to two years in jail.

At the start of his testimony to the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Dr Paterson asked if he could make a general statement.

“As headmaster I am responsible for all that occurs under my headmastership,” Dr Paterson said in his opening statement.

“There were some matters 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.

“Reading your statements, watching your stories unfold has been shocking and heart-rending.

“I accept that decisions I made were wrong and that I failed to recognise and hence respond sufficiently to events that we now know were indicators of a sinister and much bigger picture, the picture of serious sexual abuse that would damage the lives of so many.”

The Royal Commission is investigating how Knox dealt with at least six teachers who abused boys at the school, five of whom were convicted and one who died, from 1970 to 2003, a period which mostly coincided with Dr Paterson’s tenure as headmaster of the prestigious Sydney boys school.

The five teachers were not arrested until 2009 after abused former students came forward, and evidence has been presented to the inquiry that one teacher Mr Pearson had reported to Dr Paterson about, Craig Treloar, had started abusing students in the mid 1980s and abused one,

allegedly, as late as 2003.

Under cross-examination from the counsel assisting the Commission, David Lloyd, Dr Paterson was asked if he had known of any other pedophiles at Knox when he was there beyond Vance.

Mr Lloyd: “Do you accept that you were in fact aware of other instances of a potential or actual child sexual abuse during your time as headmaster at Knox.’’

Dr Paterson: “No.’’

The former headmaster agreed that he had provided Vance with a “strong” and “positive” reference, but it made no reference to the sexual advances Vance had made on the 15-year-old boy.

Dr Paterson agreed that with hindsight, the reference should have detailed the alleged abuse of the boy.

Mr Lloyd: “That he touched him on the bottom?’’

Dr Paterson: “Yes.’’

Mr Lloyd: “That he propositioned him for sex?’’

Dr Paterson: “Yes.’’

But Dr Paterson said he had incorporated in the reference a “code” known by headmasters: that in the final sentence, he said he would be happy to provide the reader with more information if approached.

Asked if he should have given some regard to the students Vance might have gone on to teach with a such a glowing reference, Dr Paterson said it “hadn’t crossed my mind.”

Asked if he thought he should have, Dr Paterson said “absolutely”.

Mr Lloyd asked Dr Paterson a similar line of questions about another former teacher, Chris Fotis.

Dr Paterson similarly wrote Fotis a favourable reference, in this case after the teacher left Knox after being arrested for masturbating in his car in front of a school.

Earlier, Fotis was a resident master at a boarding house at Knox when the “Balaclava Man” incident occurred around 1988.

In that incident, before dawn a man wearing a balaclava sneaked under the bed of a student, sexually abused him, and was chased out of the dormitory and up the Pacific Highway by other boys, but escaped.

Dr Paterson again said it had not occurred to him to call the police, but denied this reflected any desire to keep the incident from getting into the media.

While he moved Fotis out of the boarding house after the Balaclava Man affair because he was quite sure he was the culprit, Dr Paterson said, he allowed him to carry on teaching religious studies until his later arrest on the public indecency incident, again allowing him to resign rather than be sacked.

The Balaclava Man was never caught, and Fotis has not answered a summons to appear at the Commission, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest.

Dr Paterson categorically denied he had told a meeting he had called of the boarding house boys, a few days after the incident, that the Balaclava Man had been caught by police, and was a deranged Asian man not associated with the school.

In earlier evidence today, the former executive directive of the Association of Independent Schools of NSW, Terence Chapman, said he had twice, around 1990, spoken with Dr Paterson saying he had heard rumours from several people that Knox had a problem with child sexual abuse.

Dr Paterson will continue his evidence tomorrow.