|
Arrest warrant issued for former Knox teacher Christopher Fotis
By Ean Higgins
THE headmaster of an elite school says he did not know he had a legal obligation to report the sexual abuse of a pupil while he was house master at Knox Grammar. Timothy Hawkes was a senior boarding master at the Sydney private school in the late 1980s when a boy was sexually assaulted by an alleged balaclava-wearing intruder. Dr Hawkes, this morning told a national inquiry that he had assumed the police had been called, even though he had not been interviewed by police nor, to his knowledge, had the resident masters or the boy in question. Dr Hawkes, now head of the King’s School, said he would have thought the headmaster, Ian Paterson, would have contacted the police, and regarded it as his responsibility to do so. He said he had informed Mr Paterson of the incident almost immediately, at about 5am. “He needed to be told and we needed action to be taken because we had somebody running around the school with or without a balaclava sexually interfering with boys,” Dr Hawkes said. “There was absolutely no question in my mind that I fully expected the police to be notified, because it was a serious offence and I was desperate to make sure that this person was caught, because I did not want that happening again to any of my boys.” But Dr Hawes admitted he never saw any sign of police activity and had no knowledge of any person being arrested. If anyone had been arrested, Dr Hawkes said, it would have become widely known, because the Balaclava Man affair had been the talk of the school . Asked by Mr Lloyd why he did not check up in the weeks and months after the incident what had happened to what he presumed was a police investigation, Dr Hawkes said: “I didn’t believe it was my place to do that. I had every confidence that the matter would be dealt with by a very experienced headmaster.” Dr Hawkes said he might have been “naïve” in that view. In his cross-examination, Mr Lloyd put to Dr Hawkes: “I want to suggest to you, Dr Hawkes, that the only conceivable reason why you did not make sure that the police were contacted in the period immediately after this incident was that you were putting the reputation of the school before the interests and welfare of the boys. What do you say about that?” Dr Hawkes replied: “I would totally reject that comment and find it offensive and find it unreasonable. I would have absolutely no reason whatsoever to be motivated by any of those sentiments. I had particularly no motivation to have to, in a sense, protect the school and I did not in any way feel that my own role or job was in any way or form to protect the school. “I had no understanding of what my legal or proper obligations should have been in relation to reporting sexual assault on a child other than the requirement to immediately notify the headmaster.” One of the issues which has on several occasions been raised in the Knox inquiry is what knowledge staff members, and outside consultants such as psychologists, had at the time of their mandatory requirements to report suspected or alleged child sexual abuse under law. A court officer informed the Commission today that “it appears mandatory reporting for teachers in non-government schools was introduced on 18 January 1988.” “By Regulation 10, teachers and certain other vocations at a school were prescribed (as mandatory reporters).” Arrest warrant issued for ‘Balaclava Man’ An arrest warrant has been issued for the suspected “Balaclava Man”, the Knox Grammar teacher accused of dressing in a school tracksuit and balaclava, and sexually molesting a student as he slept in a school dormitory. David Lloyd, the counsel assisting the Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse this morning informed the commission that the warrant had been issued for Christopher Fotis, who had been a resident master at the boarding house at the time of the incident in 1988. Mr Lloyd told the inquiry Fotis had failed to appear. “In the wake of Mr Fotis’ failure to answer the summons issued on him by the Royal Commission, the Royal Commission has issued a warrant for his arrest,” Mr Lloyd said. “The warrant remains outstanding at present and the Commission is currently receiving updates from the NSW police in relation to the matter,” he said. The inquiry into how Knox, a prestigious Sydney private boys’ school, dealt with child abuse involving at least six teachers over 33 years, without informing police of a single incident, has heard considerable evidence about the “Balaclava Man” affair. The sexual assault occurred around 4:30am, when the predator slipped into a sleeping student dormitory, got under the bed of one Year 8 student, and then sexually abused him. The boy woke up screaming, the assailant put a doona over his head, and escaped into the night, pursued by other students. Evidence presented to the commission indicated the police were not called, and while no-one was ever charged over the incident, school authorities let it be known to students and staff that an “Asian” from outside the school was “Balaclava Man” and had been arrested by police. In his opening address to the inquiry on Monday, Mr Lloyd told the commission that “although the person’s face was concealed by a balaclava, a number of boys in the dormitory believed that the offender was Christopher Fotis”. “The basis of that belief was that the offender had the same build as Mr Fotis had, and Mr Fotis had, before lights out on the evening before the assault, said to (the boy assaulted) that he had a surprise in store for him that night.” Mr Lloyd said Fotis had criminal convictions for more than one offence before being appointed to work at Knox. The Commission has heard evidence that soon after the incident, Fotis moved out of the boarding house in question, but retained his job as a teacher. In his opening address, Mr Lloyd said of Fotis: “He continued on as a teacher at Knox until the latter part of 1989 teaching classes including religious education, until he resigned from the school after being arrested for masturbating in his car while parked outside a school.” “In the wake of the incident, (the boy) was moved to a bed next to a Year 9 student who was thought to be the toughest 15 year old in the house.”
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.