AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
September 14, 2015
Eryk Bagshaw
Education Reporter
The Cranbrook school council has praised the testimony given by the school’s headmaster at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
On Monday the school’s board, lead by prominent businesspeople Helen Nugent and Roger Massy-Greene, emphatically re-affirmed their support of the headmaster, Nicholas Sampson.
“The headmaster continues to have the full support of the school council,” the board wrote in a letter to parents.
“Further, council commends the candid and reflective approach taken by the headmaster in providing his testimony to the Royal Commission.”
The endorsement came after Mr Sampson admitted that he paid a teacher at his former institution, Geelong Grammar, to retire early to avoid any formal complaints of child sex abuse being made against him.
After he suggested the teacher, Jonathan Harvey, retire in 2004, Mr Sampson wrote handwritten notes to him praising his “outstanding service” and for his “friendship and kindness towards my family”, before authorising a payment of $64,348 for the next year in which Harvey did not work.
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