AUSTRALIA
The Australian
TESSA AKERMAN
THE AUSTRALIAN
SEPTEMBER 3, 2015
Geelong Grammar has been exposed cynically dealing with child sexual abuse, including a cover-up and ruse where the school manufactured concern to limit the fallout of the decades-long scandal.
The child sex abuse royal commission has revealed explosive evidence detailing how the school council in 2004 had a policy of hushing up abuse and that in 2006 incumbent principal Stephen Meek was fully aware of confidentiality clauses used by the institution in deals with victims.
In damning evidence, the commission released a facsimile from 1997 written by the then head of the Toorak junior campus, Phillipa Beeson, detailing the legal strategy of dealing with a victim.
Ms Beeson told then Geelong headmaster Lister Hannah that the school should not admit liability to the victim but instead ingratiate itself with the victim, who was assaulted as a child in 1980 but the complaint was made in 1997.
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