Trinity Boys Used "Dildo" Made in Woodwork Class to Rape Younger Student, Inquiry Told

The Guardian
October 19, 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/oct/20/trinity-boys-used-dildo-made-in-woodwork-class-to-younger-student-inquiry-told

The exterior of Trinity grammar school in Summer Hill. A boy told police that other students had bound him with tape and raped him with a wooden implement, the royal commission was told. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

Students at Sydney’s Trinity grammar school used an item made during a woodwork class to rape a younger student, the abuse royal commission has heard.

On day one of fresh hearings in Sydney, counsel assisting David Lloyd gave an overview of the cases of “institutional responses to children with problematic or harmful sexual behaviours” to be examined by the inquiry.

These include instances of harmful behaviour and sexual assault perpetrated by students at two of Sydney’s most prestigious private boys’ schools – the King’s school in Parramatta and Trinity grammar school in Summer Hill.

There will also be private hearings into incidents at three public primary schools, which include behaviour by a 12-year-old towards two younger children and two children in a special needs class.

The incidents at Trinity grammar occurred in 2000 at the school’s boarding house, counsel assisting Lloyd said.

The commission heard a police interview with a student who revealed that he was bound with tape and raped with a “wooden implement” he called a “dildo”.

Lloyd said the boy’s father would give evidence at the inquiry and would tell the commission he felt the Trinity grammar leadership was more interested in protecting its image than taking responsibility for what happened.

At the King’s school, Lloyd described an incident in 2013 when a boy went on cadet camp and another student ejaculated on his sleeping bag.

Details of the encounter spread quickly among students and the victim came to be called names relating to it by many boys, Lloyd said.

The commission heard the boy’s father is expected to give evidence that the King’s principal, Dr Timothy Hawkes, told the parents their son bore “some of the blame” for the ongoing bullying because he was slow to report the incident to the school.

Shalom Christian college in Townsville, Queensland, will also be under the inquiry’s spotlight for its response to the rape of a female student in 2006.

This series of hearings in Sydney is estimated to run for about two and half weeks.