A prestigious Brisbane school’s “misconceived” responses to proposed damning findings over a sex abuse scandal include questioning testimony over “the minor difference between the words ‘dick’ and ‘penis’”, according to counsel assisting the royal commission.
David Lloyd, the barrister who acted in hearings into abuse at Brisbane Grammar and St Paul’s School, has urged the commission to find that senior staff at both schools did not protect students by failing to act on repeated complaints against paedophiles Kevin Lynch and Gregory Knight.
The saga of serial abuse by Lynch and Knight in the 1970s and 1980s as they moved with impunity between schools also prompted Lloyd to recommend findings critical of powerful church and political figures.
They include that the former archbishop and governor general Peter Hollingworth helped promote a St Paul’s principal to a role overseeing Anglican schools’ child protection policies, despite knowing a victim had accused the headmaster of failing to act on complaints against Lynch.
Former South Australian education minister Donald Hopgood was also held partly responsible for Knight’s trail of abuse because he overruled the paedophile’s dismissal over suspected abuse at a school in the state. Knight subsequently left anyway.
It was likely that if Hopgood or his department had notified teacher registration authorities of the “true reasons” for Knight’s departure, he would not have been hired by St Paul’s and then a Northern Territory school, “where he went on to sexually abuse boys”, Lloyd submitted.
Among the child protection failures by the late Grammar principal Max Howell was his lack of response to a 1979 complaint by a country doctor, who told the commission his son had said Lynch “fiddled with my dick”.
Grammar, in a response challenging many of Lloyd’s recommended findings, attempted to raise uncertainties about the doctor’s account by pointing to his 2002 statutory declaration that his son had said Lynch “fiddled with my penis”.
Lloyd in response said that “many of [Grammar’s] submissions are misconceived”.
He cited as an example the school’s attempt to dispute the doctor’s credibility as a witness on the basis of “the minor difference between the words ‘dick’ and ‘penis’ [that] was explained”.
Lloyd said there was “no basis to assert unreliability because a witness concedes that he cannot remember the actual words used in a conversation 20 years earlier”.
He noted Grammar’s response acknowledged “that the actions of Mr Lynch were capable of constituting a criminal offence in Queensland at the relevant times”.
Lloyd did concede to Grammar after it complained that he wrongly characterised the Grammar school board chairman, Howard Stack, as giving evidence the school “did not act fairly” towards former students in compensation claims over Lynch’s abuse by failing to accept the school’s legal liability.
“Counsel assisting accepts that Mr Stack’s evidence was that he understood that, ‘from the boy’s point of view’ the school had not acted fairly,” Lloyd said.
“Having regard to what the school knew or ought to have known about the absence of any systems to supervise or monitor Mr Lynch, and the extent of Mr Lynch’s wrongdoing, it is submitted that it is open to find that the only way the school could have acted fairly, irrespective of the view of its insurer, was to admit liability.”
Lloyd urged the commission to make the same finding on Grammar’s unfair treatment of former students’ compensation claims, but without reference to it being Stack’s evidence.
Counsel for Hollingworth in response said the serious allegations against him could not meet “the appropriate standard of proof” to satisfy the commission in its findings.
His barrister said Hollingworth was relying on the former St Paul’s principal Gilbert Case “to provide accurate information in relation to revelations concerning Mr Lynch’s misconduct” before the school counsellor took his life when facing abuse charges.
“The evidence indicates that Mr Case did not provide accurate information to Dr Hollingworth,” the barrister said.
Counsel for Hopgood argued there was no evidence “confirming the causal link between the actions of Hopgood and the [SA education] department”, and Knight’s employment in Queensland and the NT.
There was no evidence Knight’s registration as a teacher in SA “was even considered by Mr Case” in hiring him at St Paul’s or by his later employers in the NT.
Lloyd in response appeared to stand by his recommended findings against Hollingworth and Hopgood, declining to address their defences.
