Child sex abuse royal commission: Senior politician to be grilled over reference

By Jorge Branco
Brisbane Times
November 9, 2015

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/child-sex-abuse-royal-commission-senior-politician-to-be-grilled-over-reference-20151109-gkups2.html

Former South Australian Education Minister Donald Hopgood and his legal representative Anthony Kimmins.

A former deputy Premier will again take the stand on Tuesday to explain why he gave a positive reference to a man he knew to have sexually assaulted minors in his care.

child abuse, royal commission, Brisbane Grammar, Peter Holliwngworth, St Paul's, abuse Brisbane 

Convicted paedophile Gregory Robert Knight was accused of rubbing and touching Year 7 and 8 students' bodies, including their penises, on two separate school camps for a school in South Australia three years before he came to teach in Queensland, where he abused boys at St Paul's School.

The SA government investigated and found Knight guilty of several counts of improper and disgraceful conduct stemming from the two camps. SA Police also investigated but decided they didn't have enough evidence to lay charges.

Following this investigation then South Australian Education Minister Dr Donald Hopgood, who later became deputy premier of the state, wrote Knight a positive reference for the time they spent together in the Noarlunga City Concert Band.

In his opening address to the child sex abuse royal commission last week, Counsel Assisting David Lloyd told the commission Dr Hopgood knew about the investigation findings and wrote the reference on parliamentary letterhead, although not ministerial letterhead.

On Monday, Dr Hopgood corrected his statement to the commission to indicate he had received Knight's resignation before he signed the teacher's letter of dismissal.

He said a report told him "no-one at the school, including the families of the victims involved, wanted to see this matter publicised and that we would be criticised if we allowed this to happen".

Mr Hopgood said he eventually accepted a recommendation from his director-general, Colin Louj, that the resignation be allowed to stand.

A former close friend of Knight, Gregory Day, who taught at Willunga High School in the McLaren Vale wine district at the same time went on one of the camps, in November 1977.

He told investigators at the time he saw Mr Knight playing in the water naked with naked boys and that the teacher brought a screaming child into the three-man tent the two men were sharing in the middle of the night.

He told investigators he felt the boy begin to masturbate as he lay between the two men and heard Knight say: "Don't do that (boy's name), you'll need your strength for the morning."

Mr Day said he had no recollection of these conversations but accepted they took place.

Dr Hopgood would go on to serve as Deputy Premier from 1985 until the Labor party was kicked out of office in 1992.

He was president of the band at the time Knight was music director and said he "wasn't unfriendly" with the young teacher.

"I'm friendly with everybody," he said.

"We weren't mates in the Aussie sense of the word."

Dr Hopgood spent about 20 minutes on the stand on Monday but was yet to be asked why he provided the reference.

He was expected to give evidence again from 10am Tuesday.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse continues.