School Turned "Blind Eye" to Abuse

Sky News
November 20, 2014

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/2014/11/20/school-turned--blind-eye--to-abuse.html

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.

Instead Mr Ayling consulted friend and lawyer Michael Hodgman - later a Tasmanian politician and father of now Premier Will Hodgman - who was a Hutchins old boy.

'Mr Hodgman's advice to me was that I should say nothing,' Mr Ayling recounted.

Mr Hodgman died in 2013.

Mr Ayling told the commission the advice also included a warning that the school board would become aggressive and defensive against the claims and that he could be subpoenaed and find himself in 'dire difficulty'.

'I believe there was a conscious decision by the school to cover this up in the 1960s and keep this information about its teachers from becoming public,' Mr Ayling said.

Such was his frustration Mr Ayling resigned from Hutchins after four years and changed careers.

'I no longer wanted to work in the school ... because of the prevalence of pedophiles among teaching staff.'

Also giving evidence on Thursday was John Bednall, Hutchins principal for nine years from 1987.

During his time as principal he received a report from a past student claiming to have been sexually abused by Lawrence.

Dr Bednall said he faced a 'complex affair' trying to determine the veracity of the claim, partly because at the time no other students had come forward.

'Despite all the rumours that surround Mr Lawrence, no boy had come forward during my time as headmaster,' he told the hearing.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining how the school and the Anglican church reacted to reports of abuse.

Dr Bednall will continue to give evidence on Friday.