Child Abuse Royal Commission: Parents Drove 400km to Meet Headmaster

By Jorge Branco
Brisbane Times
November 4, 2015

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/child-abuse-royal-commission-parents-drove-400km-to-meet-headmaster-20151104-gkqcs7.html

Brisbane Grammar School is at the centre of the child abuse inquiry. Photo: Brisbane Grammar School

A parent who complained to former Brisbane Grammar School headmaster Max Howell his son had been interfered with says he never heard from the school again.

The boy's father, a retired doctor of 41 years, told the child abuse royal commission in Brisbane he received a panicked phone call from his son in the winter of 1981 saying: "Kevin Lynch is a poofter. He put his hands down my trousers and fiddled with my penis".

The man, BQH, cleared his schedule for the following day and made a four-hour drive to Brisbane with wife BQI to meet with Mr Howell.

The former headmaster denied until his dying day he was told about the abuse but the father testified it was inconceivable he could have made the trip without telling him.

"There's absolutely no doubt at all," he said.

"Why would we travel 400 kilometres or 800 kilometre return journey, if it wasn't for a very specific reason?"

The boarder's father said he checked with his sons several times whether they had any more problems with Lynch, which they hadn't, but never heard anything more from the school.

It wasn't until many years later he and his wife, who said they were "naive" in thinking Howell would act, realised the extent of Lynch's crimes.

Former Grammar teachers Ron Cochrane and Raymond Cross are expected to appear before the commission on Wednesday afternoon.