AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Australian Associated Press
Sunday 23 November 2014
The former principal of an elite Tasmanian boys’ school has blamed the Hobart Mercury for the school’s failure to apologise to an alleged victim of sexual assault.
William Toppin told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse the Hutchins school board was worried about how the newspaper would report the event if the man, known as AOA for legal reasons, went public.
Toppin was principal at the school for a decade from 1997 and was not directly involved with the board’s investigation of the claim, which dated back to 1964, against then-headmaster David Ralph Lawrence.
But he was at board meetings when the issue was discussed and on Monday gave his version of events.
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