Kings School headmaster Timothy Hawkes gives evidence about Knox to royal commission

By Rachel Browne
Sydney Morning Herald
February 26, 2015

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/kings-school-headmaster-timothy-hawkes-gives-evidence-about-knox-to-royal-commission-20150226-13p7yq.html

"I had no understanding of what my legal or proper obligations should have been": Dr Timothy Hawkes.

Dr Ian Paterson, the former headmaster at Knox Grammar School.

Damian Vance leaves the royal commission.

When a masked man entered a boarding house at Knox Grammar School and sexually assaulted a year 8 student in his bed, the then housemaster Tim Hawkes fully expected the police to be notified.

Dr Hawkes, now headmaster of the King's School, told a royal commission that he never saw police at the school and, to his knowledge, the victim and witnesses were never interviewed.

He said he did not see it as his responsibility to report the matter to the police, instead leaving it in the hands of the then headmaster, Dr Ian Paterson.

"I was comfortable with the fact we had a highly experienced headmaster," he said.

"I had every confidence that proper protocols would have been followed. I was not aware of what those particular protocols would have been."

Under cross-examination by counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Dr Hawkes said he was unaware of mandatory reporting laws regarding child sexual abuse at the time of the so-called "balaclava man" incident in late 1988.

"I was not aware of this act at the time I was employed at Knox and neither did I undergo any in-service or training in relation to this act," he said.

"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."

He described the incident to the commission as "bizarre" and "frightening" and over time grew to suspect a resident staff member may have been the perpetrator, wearing a balaclava and an older style Knox tracksuit.

He told the commission that English teacher Damian Vance or religious education teacher Christopher Fotis were considered likely suspects.

"It did take some days for me to process and think through ... we're dealing not necessarily with someone from outside but someone who knew the school well," he said.

"The possibility was there in my mind that the assailant might be somebody from within."

The commission heard both Vance and Fotis continued to work at the school after the incident.

"I suppose the presumption of innocence is something which I believe to be important and I did not feel that I had any right to take action on the basis of something which, quite frankly, I had absolutely no certainty," he said.

Vance was asked to resign in early 1989. In 2009, Vance was arrested over an indecent assault at Knox in 1987. He was convicted and released on a good behaviour bond.

Fotis was asked to leave the school in September 1989 after being arrested for masturbating outside a school in North Ryde.

A warrant has been issued for Fotis' arrest for failing to appear at the royal commission.

The hearing, before Justice Jennifer Coate, continues.