AUSTRALIA
The Australian
THE former long-serving headmaster of Knox Grammar, Ian Paterson, has issued a sweeping apology for failing to protect students from child sexual abuse by teachers over three decades.
But Dr Paterson, in his early testimony to an inquiry this morning, said he was unaware of any such incidents before one involving a teacher in 1989.
This contradicted evidence of other witnesses including a former policeman who was general duties manager, Stuart 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.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.