AUSTRALIA
Sky News
The sexual abuse of boys at an elite Hobart school in the 1960s was common knowledge but attempts to raise the alarm were stifled, a national royal commission has been told.
A third of senior teachers at The Hutchins School, including headmaster David Ralph Lawrence, had an interest in boys at the time, former science master Geoffrey Ayling said.
‘Although the experience of these students was common knowledge, everyone just turned a blind eye,’ the 75 year old told a commission hearing in Hobart on Thursday.
He recalled the sudden dismissal of a teacher in 1964 after a school nurse walked in on a ‘three-dimensional trigonometry’ lesson.
‘He had been found committing an act of buggery with a student,’ Mr Ayling said by way of explanation.
On another occasion he overheard a conversation of Mr Lawrence, which led him to believe the principal ‘shared a common interest in boys’ and so he didn’t raise his concerns in-house.
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