Child sex abuse inquiry: Former Brisbane Grammar School students to detail years of abuse
ROLLING UPDATES: She sent her son to one of the best private schools in Brisbane. Instead of a top education he got a ruined life, a woman has told a royal commission. GRAPHIC CONTENT
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A MOTHER whose son was sexually abused by Kevin Lynch at Brisbane Grammar has given emotional testimony of the damage inflicted.
The witness, whose son gave evidence immediately prior to her testimony, said she had sent her four children to “what we thought were the best private schools in Brisbane”.
“What did we get for our money? We got the worst anyone could possibly imagine,” she said, describing her son’s addiction to alcohol and drugs and how she was officially his carer.
Using the pseudonym BQR, she stopped repeatedly to try to compose herself as she told how her son’s development had been damaged and he would never reach his potential.
“Because he was sexually abused instead of being cared for he has not been able to have a profession, a wife or children,” she said.
“I have missed out on grandchildren. Instead life has been a struggle for us all.”
Lynch had also sought to abuse another of her sons, she said.
The woman’s testimony came as another former student told of feeling guilty for not speaking out earlier about the abuse he suffered at the hands of Lynch.
The 44-year-old, known as BQG, told the commission of his struggle on learning that his father’s death when he was aged 11 was actually a suicide.
He was told to see the school counsellor, Lynch, who abused him on the first session and came to groom him over the next several years as the abuse continued.
BQG told the commission Lynch introduced him to his family, taught him to drive and lent him his car.
He said Lynch had become a father to him, made himself irreplaceable and that the abuse was “just the price I had to pay for having a dad”.
“Today I look back with great deal of guilt for not saying anything and enormous admiration for the St Paul’s student who said ‘it’s got to stop’,” he said.
“I have great sorrow that because that was a decision I continued to make, instead of saying ‘that’s not right’, so many other kids got hurt.
“It’s a huge challenge to me today and it’s one of the reasons I’ve come to the royal commission, I’m just sorry it’s 28 years too late.
“I’ve come forward to stop this happening again. I’m saying what I should have said 30 years ago. I’ve spent 30 years feeling tired and feeling guilty.”
School ‘more concerned with its brand’
BRISBANE Grammar School was more concerned about protecting its brand than hearing from victims of a depraved counsellor, the first witness at today’s Royal Commission said.
The witness, known as BQK, said he felt there was wilful ignorance or a deliberate cover-up of the abuse by the school.
“If there was ignorance of Lynch’s pedophilic activities as opposed to actual collaboration, I believe it was wilful ignorance none-the-less, fuelled by a desire to, above all, protect the reputation of the school,” he said.
“I was badly let down by this culture of turning a blind eye and ‘protecting the brand’ and it’s hard not to see it as a deliberate cover-up.”
BQK told the hearing how he was hypnotised by Lynch and abused over several years, starting in 1983.
He said Lynch told him it was a treatment that would “give him an edge” over other students and in life.
“I was just a kid so I didn’t question. I assumed this was a normal treatment method,” he said.
BQK said the room had one door in and another door out “like a conveyor belt of abuse”.
But he said he was unaware it was abuse at the time, and even saw Lynch as a mentor and life guru whom he kept in contact with after he left the school.
“Because my family relationships were dysfunctional, Lynch became like a father figure to me, so much so I invited him to my 21st birthday and it was him, not my father, who gave a speech,” he said.
“He went to a lot of 21sts. He must like cake.”
The former student also exploded at Walter Sofronoff, QC, who is counsel for Brisbane Grammar.
BQK said he paid Mr Sofronoff $5000 for a legal opinion regarding compensation for his abuse 10 years ago.
“That is just symbolic of the fact the school does not get it. That a person I paid $5000 to for an opinion almost 10 years ago is buyable by the school,” he said.
“He said earlier, legally, technically, there was no issue ... this is not about technical legalities. It’s about the fact that children were abused.”
Mr Sofronoff earlier told the commission he had considered the matter and saw no reason to stand down from his representation of the school.
But he said he would absent himself from the room when BQK gave evidence and the school would not question the witness.
Boys told sex abuse ‘part of treatment’
A DEPRAVED school counsellor at a top Brisbane private school hypnotised boys who sought his help before sexually abusing them, telling them it was part of their treatment, a Royal Commission into child sexual abuse heard.
The Royal Commission sitting in Brisbane this week will hear of abuse committed by former Brisbane Grammar School counsellor Kevin Lynch, who later went to St Paul’s School at Bald Hills, as well as music teacher Gregor Robert Knight, also at St Paul’s.
Counsel assisting David Lloyd told the hearing more than 80 people had contacted the Commission regarding the two schools.
Mr Lloyd claimed a significant number of boys were abused by Lynch during his time at the school from 1973 to 1988, which often involved him hypnotising them during counselling sessions and asking them to undress and perform sexual acts.
“Lynch told the boys that this was part of the therapy he was providing. Many of the boys believed him,” he said.
Mr Lloyd said it was expected the hearing would be told Lynch became a father figure to some of his victims and was even invited to one boy’s 21st birthday.
Another boy is expected to say he was sent to Lynch due to disciplinary issues but was abused during his sessions, Mr Lloyd said.
“(The witness) is expected to say that there was no marked improvement in his behaviour or academic record, but Lynch told him, and he honestly believed, that his treatment was giving him a ‘edge’ in life,” Mr Lloyd said.
He said another boy was ignored when he told the school he did not want to see Lynch anymore.
“(They) did not ask why he did not want to continue seeing Lynch, instead responding, you’re just going to have to. You’ve got no choice in the matter’,” he said.
Mr Lloyd’s opening address covered accounts of repeated abuse of boys, sometimes up to three times a week, which Lynch often referred to as “relaxation” techniques.
The former principal at the school, Maxwell Howell, now deceased, told one student who complained of abuse “he’s a short man. You’re a big boy. You can take care of yourself”, the commission will hear.
Before dying, Howell is said to have denied any knowledge of abuse by Lynch and signed a sworn affidavit that one witness was telling “blatant lies”.
The abuse continued when Lynch started at St Paul’s, where he was based from 1989 to 1997, the Royal Commission was told.
Mr Lloyd said Lynch committed suicide in 1997 after he was charged by police with nine counts of sexual abuse of one St Paul’s student.
In 2000, the then Anglican Archbishop Peter Hollingworth issued a press release saying he was told the school knew nothing about the “misconduct” and those subjected to it did not complain to anyone on authority.
Knight was a music teacher at St Paul’s who abused or attempted to abuse several students from 1981 to 1984.
The school’s headmaster at the time, Gilbert Case, told one victim who made a complaint “you will ruin a man’s career if you tell lies like that” and gave the students detention, the commission heard.
Mr Lloyd said after hearing of a “naked truth or dare game” played by Knight and several students, Mr Case accepted the music teacher’s resignation.
But Mr Case wrote him a positive reference.
“Mr Knight has an exceptional ability to organise music programs and challenge students in their commitments,” Mr Case wrote in the reference read out to the Commission.
Mr Case has denied that he was told by some students that they had been abused by Lynch or Knight.
The Commission was told that a South Australian Education Minister, Dr Donald Hopgood, wrote a reference for Knight despite being aware of proven allegations that he rubbed and touched a student inappropriately at a school camp in 1977.
He also rescinded Knight’s dismissal from teaching and instead accepted his resignation, the commission heard.
It was not until complaints were raised at a Northern Territory school that Knight was dismissed as a teacher and charged by police.
In December 1994 he was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment with a three-year non-parole period.
The Royal Commission continues.
EARLIER: Hollingworth a witness in sex abuse inquiry
FORMER governor-general Peter Hollingworth will be called to give evidence at the child abuse royal commission.
Two weeks of hearings are being held in Brisbane into the sexual abuse of students at the prestigious Brisbane Grammar School and Anglican St Paul’s School at Bald Hills from the 1970s to 1990s.
Mr Hollingworth, the former Anglican archbishop of Brisbane, is among 31 witnesses to be called to give evidence, it was revealed this morning.
He was governor-general from 2001 to 2003, when he resigned amid a storm of controversy over his handling of child sex abuse allegations as archbishop.
Convicted pedophile and former St Paul’s music teacher Gregory Knight will also be called to give evidence.
Knight moved from state to state and school to school abusing young boys, aided by glowing references from his employers.
He was sentenced to three years’ jail in 2005 after being convicted of more than 20 charges of indecently dealing with a student at St Paul’s from 1981 to 1983.
Brisbane Grammar’s school council chairman Howard Stack and former Grammar teacher Ron Cochrane will give evidence, as will Anglican Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, former Anglican diocese of Brisbane general manager Bernard Yorke and former St Paul’s headmaster Gilbert Case.
Former South Australian education minister Don Hopgood has also been called to give evidence, after allegations he gave a glowing reference to music teacher Greg Knight after rescinding his dismissal from an Adelaide school in 1978 for “disgraceful and improper conduct”.
Knight went on to sexually abuse students in Brisbane and Darwin.
The royal commission is focusing on Knight and former Grammar and St Paul’s counsellor Kevin Lynch.
Former students and teachers will also give evidence.
OVERNIGHT: Elite school’s depraved ‘relax’ sessions
MORE former Brisbane Grammar students have come forward with tales of abuse at the hands of a depraved school counsellor in the 1970s and 1980s, it can be revealed as the inquiry into child sexual abuse returns to Queensland.
The actions of former counsellor Kevin Lynch, who abused boys in closed-door “relaxation” sessions at the school, will be scrutinised in the public hearing today.
The school has taken pre-emptive action, telling parents in an online statement that the “dark chapter” in the school’s history would be covered at the royal commission into child sexual abuse this week.
“The work of the royal commission has already encouraged others to come forward, and we are glad that they have now chosen to do so,” the statement said.
ABUSE: School to relive darkest chapter
The school acknowledged that the abuse took place and said it would co-operate with the commission to develop “best practice systems and culture” to protect students.
“To all who have suffered, we reiterate our apology,” the statement said.
The royal commission will also focus on victims of Lynch and former music teacher Gregory Robert Knight at St Paul’s School in Bald Hills.
It will examine the way staff, the headmaster and the Anglican Diocese dealt with complaints from students, as well as allegations of a cover-up.
Abuse by Lynch took place at Brisbane Grammar while he counselled students there from 1972 to 1988, when he moved to St Paul’s.
Lynch committed suicide in 1997 after being charged with the sexual abuse of a St Paul’s student.
His abuse remained a secret until three years after his death, when an investigation by The Courier-Mail revealed the criminal charges and allegations that he had abused other boys.
The current practices of both schools in dealing with concerns or complaints relating to child sexual abuse will also be scrutinised.
There will be nine days of public hearings into the abuse, as told by former students.
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