Child abuse royal commission: Geelong Grammar principal did not think he was entitled to investigate abuse claims

By Simon Lauder
ABC News
September 9, 2015

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-09/principal-did-not-think-he-was-entitled-to-investigate-abuse/6761856

Former principal John Lewis did not think students were at risk despite abuse claims made against a teacher.

A long-serving principal of Geelong Grammar says he did not do anything about sexual abuse claims made against a staff member by a student because he did not believe he was entitled to investigate, a hearing has been told.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse today heard the story of a student who was abused by former Geelong Grammar house master, and now convicted paedophile, Jonathan Harvey.

Harvey was convicted in 2007 on 10 counts of gross indecency committed against another student of Geelong Grammar between May 1976 and May 1978.

The incidents raised in the hearing on Wednesday occurred in the mid 1980s while Harvey and the student were overseas and also involved abuse by other people.

John Lewis was the principal of Geelong Grammar from 1980 to 1994 and later went on to be headmaster of the world-renowned Eton College in England.

Appearing at the royal commission, Mr Lewis was asked why he took no action when the student's father twice reported the abuse to him.

Mr Lewis said the boy's father did not want him to report it or investigate it, so he did not.

"The son had been subjected to abuse and this was clearly a very serious matter, but it was a matter that I did not believe myself entitled to investigate," Mr Lewis said.

In 1982 there had been a complaint about sexual advances by Harvey towards a student.

Other than that, Mr Lewis said he had no reason to believe students were at risk from Harvey.

"The only previous complaint I knew of took place in 1982," he said.

"I did not take the view that boys in general or pupils in general were at daily risk or regular risk of being abused."

Counsel assisting the royal commission David Lloyd also asked Mr Lewis to explain why he allowed Harvey to host gatherings of students at his residence, despite being aware of credible claims that he had sexually abused students.

"I believed the circumstances in 1986 were unusual and atypical ... holidays, 12,000 miles away," Mr Lewis responded.

"The risk of sexual abuse at school was very, very, very much lower."

In 1989 Mr Lewis was told that a boy had been molested at Highton House, where Philippe Trutmann was employed by Geelong Grammar as a live-in boarding house assistant.

Mr Lewis told the commission he could not remember doing anything to follow that up and he did not believe he should have referred it to police.

Trutmann has since been convicted of abusing 41 students.

Mr Lewis was also aware that teacher Andrew MacCulloch had a pattern of developing "disturbing" relationships with boys.

Mr Lloyd suggested Mr Lewis should have done more.

"If you had investigated allegations of child sexual abuse that came to your attention, it is likely that a number of students at Geelong Grammar School who were abused would not have been abused," he said.

Mr Lewis rejected that, but later under cross examination accepted that a different approach may have saved some students from abuse.

"Well, it's a possible view of it," he said.

Mr Lewis is due to appear again on Thursday.