Death of Brisbane Grammar School teacher after sex abuse claim raises questions over the web as a path of justice

AFTER child abuse allegations were posted online, the accused, a Brisbane Grammar teacher, took his life, raising questions about the use of the web as an avenue of justice.

pic of Brisbane Boys Grammar.pic glenn barnes

IN MAY, 2000, three police officers were shot in a pre-dawn ambush at Chermside in Brisbane’s north. Miraculously, the officers survived. But the aftermath would change hundreds more lives when it emerged the gunman, Nigel Parodi, had gone off the rails after being sexually abused as a student at elite private school Brisbane Grammar.

Parodi’s abuser was the school’s revered former counsellor, Kevin Lynch, and it soon emerged scores of other boys had fallen victim at Grammar and his subsequent workplace, St Paul’s School at Bald Hills.

Fifteen years later, another damaged man lashed out last week over events connected to the same two schools, again with deadly consequences. On this occasion the weapon used was not a rifle. It was a blog.

For some time a former unionist and talented Brisbane writer, Brenden Sheehan, had written a controversial blog under the pseudonym, Archie Butterfly. His prolific, take-no-prisoners posts gave his often scathing take on politics, sport and current affairs. But on Tuesday, October 6, Sheehan used the blog to publish a searing personal story of being drugged and sexually abused when he was a teenager.

His post followed a public announcement by The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that it would next month hold hearings into the abuse of children at Brisbane Grammar and St Paul’s from the 1970s to 1990s.

Critically, Sheehan, 46, bypassed established channels for reporting abuse and named his abuser as Greg Masters, a man who had gone on to become a respected Brisbane Grammar School teacher and swim coach. The allegations related to events of more than 30 years earlier when Sheehan was a 14-year-old St Paul’s student and Masters was himself a 17-year-old St Paul’s student. Within 48 hours of the post going online, Masters had taken his own life.

Respected Brisbane Grammar School teacher Greg Masters.

His death has sparked a vicious online blame game and raised questions about the ease of destroying reputations with the click of a mouse. It has also put the spotlight on the royal commission, and the collateral damage when survivors confront traumatic, deeply-buried memories.

On one side of the debate about Masters is a tribe of loyal students who say he was not only a good teacher, but the best they’ve ever had, and a tight-knit network of families understandably aggrieved at the allegations being raised publicly before they were even investigated. On the other side are those alarmed at the vilification of Sheehan and the effect it might have on abuse victims coming forward.

Caught in the middle is Brisbane Grammar, one of the state’s most highly regarded schools, which has found itself dealing with the sudden death of a popular teacher after the public airing of abuse allegations untested in any court from events long before he started at the school in 1994.

Masters, 48, a former lawyer, was a charming and highly intelligent Year 7 English and geography teacher respected by peers and students alike. Residing alone in a small duplex in Spring Hill a short walk from the school, he lived for his job. Was it possible he had pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes, that he had contrived to put himself in a position of trust, as the school’s Master of Swimming no less, and then abused that trust? Had he taken his own life because he knew the allegations were true and worse, that more would come out?

Grammar is adamant no allegations have been made relating to its students, before or after the blog. But new claims made to The Courier-Mail by a former St Paul’s classmate who was once one of Masters’ best friends, are bound to cause further alarm. The man, whose identity has been confirmed but asked for his name to be withheld, had a dramatic falling out when the pair lived together in their early 20s. The reason he gives for the end to their friendship is disturbing – he says he confronted Masters with concerns about the time he was spending with teenage boys.

Masters, who was from an asset-rich family, had bought a house at Royal St, Virginia, in Brisbane’s north when he was 21. The former friend says Masters, one of the brightest and most charming men he had met, frequently invited young boys to the home. At least one of the boys was a St Paul’s student and others were neighbourhood kids, about 12 to 15 years old. When the friend came home to find one boy wearing only shorts, he told Masters he was concerned.

Brisbane Grammar school has sought to be simultaneously respectful to Masters, his family, friends and his accuser.

“I saw it happening. I’d put it together,” he says. Masters made no admissions of any wrongdoing, but asked him to move out straight away. The ties between the two men had been strong. The friend had married young, and Masters had been his best man then godfather to his daughter. His marriage had ended quickly, which was how he came to be living with Masters. But overnight, their friendship was history. He says he is speaking out now because he saw the way Sheehan was being attacked over his blog.

Masters had disclosed to the friend that he had been sexually abused as a child. The friend, now 50 and living in Sydney, wonders if Masters has repeated the cycle of abuse. Other things worry him too, including that Masters became a swim coach when he had not been a swimmer in his youth. Masters was carving out a future in law at the time, but all he had ever wanted to do was work at Grammar, the friend says.

“Greg is dead because he would have known there was no other way out,” he concludes. “He would have gone through every conceivable scenario, he is so clever. The fantasy he lived in had ended.”

Grammar’s focus is on its students, past and present. It has launched its own investigations to ascertain if any have been harmed, while being clear that no allegation had been made regarding Masters’ time at the school. The school has sought to be simultaneously respectful to Masters, his family, friends and his accuser – a fine line to tread that it so far appears to have done admirably.

Public hearings at the child abuse royal commission will next month hear harrowing stories of abuse of children at Brisbane Grammar and St Paul’s from the 1970s to 1990s.

The same cannot be said for those who, in defending Masters, have viciously turned on Sheehan. Internet tributes to Masters have skewed into accusations without backing or foundation that Sheehan has invented his claims for money or attention. Others have rashly ruled out any possibility Masters could have harmed Sheehan or anyone else, because the slur did not match the man they knew. A similar reaction followed the initial revelations about Kevin Lynch 15 years earlier, with a section of the school community interpreting the allegations as a personal assault on Grammar. It wasn’t then, and shouldn’t be now. Amid the fallout, Sheehan had been rapidly unravelling online, his fragile psychological state apparent in a series of increasingly erratic posts since the initial allegations.

Some of the abuse of Sheehan has been under the internet’s cowardly cloak of anonymity. Whatever criticism can be made of Sheehan, he has not tried to hide his identity since the furore erupted. Although he writes as Archie Butterfly, he has made no real attempt to conceal his name. Long before the Masters scandal, critics of his blog had revealed his identity online and a basic Google search established who he was. He has agreed to put his face to his claims in photographs. He also appears fully aware of the personal legal and financial ramifications of his public allegations, writing in his now notorious initial post that he expected Masters to launch defamation proceedings.

Regardless of his legal options, Masters was always going to have difficulty clearing his name once the accusations had made their way onto the internet. Traditional media safeguards put strict controls on what can be published about anyone to prevent unfair slurs, but online, all that has gone out the window. The nature of the internet and social media is that anyone can publish any allegation, and often does. Masters is far from alone in being named and shamed online. For example an unsubstantiated and unfounded Facebook post recently speculated missing three-year-old William Tyrrell’s parents were somehow involved in his disappearance, merely because they had not been identified. The false Tyrrell post has been shared more than 57,000 times. Before spreading this post or other slurs, did people consider the harm they could cause and that they could be held responsible for what they said or shared?

Child protection advocate Hetty Johnston wants victims to continue to come forward.

Few people have done more to protect and assist children than Hetty Johnston, founder and chair of child protection group Bravehearts. Johnston says upfront that she doesn’t believe Sheehan should have named Masters. But she also understands why he did.

“You’re dealing with human frailty and raw, untapped human emotion. There has to be some sympathy for everybody involved in this,” Johnston says.

Johnston wants people to come forward, break their silence and talk to police or somebody they trust.

“But it has to be appropriately and through the right channels,” she says. “We understand totally the headspace he must have been in when he posted that. He’s feeling frustrated. He’s had this secret his whole life and now he’s telling people ... We understand that, but if he had come to us we wouldn’t have suggested he do that. We have to be playing inside the rules.

“A lot of the time the system doesn’t work and you could understand the frustration of survivors when they’ve gone through the process, and the process hasn’t delivered them an outcome. I get that. In this case we hadn’t got through the process yet.”

Johnston is concerned the attacks on Sheehan could deter victims of child sex abuse from coming forward. She adds it’s not uncommon for people to be unable to accept abuse may have occurred.

“More often than not, families will close in around the alleged offender and not the victim. They choose not to believe the victim.

“Our brains I think as normal right-minded people just can’t extend to thinking someone we respect and like in the same space as what we perceive to be a sex offender.”

All of this is playing out amid the backdrop of impending public hearings at the child abuse royal commission that will next month hear harrowing stories of abuse of children at Brisbane Grammar and St Paul’s from the 1970s to 1990s. Those hearings will examine the actions of counsellor Kevin Lynch and former St Paul’s music teacher Gregory Knight, who moved from state to state abusing children with the aid of glowing references from the very schools that knew he was a predator.

St Paul’s music teacher Gregory Knight moved from state to state abusing children.

After learning of the upcoming hearings, Sheehan decided to share his story and at first went through official channels. Contacting the royal commission by phone, he recounted abuse by Masters and separately by Knight. He was referred to Queensland Police, and a detective phoned him on Monday last week to ask if he would make a formal complaint. Sheehan wanted to discuss it with his wife and children first, the officer arranging to call him later in the week.

The next day, Sheehan went to see the Anglican Church’s director of professional standards. The meeting had been prearranged but Sheehan had mistakenly gone in a day early and was asked to return at the agreed time. Sheehan felt a rush of anger and demanded a meeting that day, so the manager cancelled his other meetings and they spoke. However on the same day, Sheehan went online and wrote his fateful post about Masters.

Brisbane Grammar became aware of the blog at 7pm Wednesday last week and almost immediately stood Masters down pending an investigation. Masters was found dead the next morning. In this situation, everyone loses. Masters cannot defend himself, and Sheehan is robbed of any chance at justice.

Johnston has called for calm as the royal commission approaches, saying it is a “once in a lifetime opportunity to get this on the public record forever”.

“These stories, as horrible as they are and as traumatic as they are, are incredibly important and the lessons from them are incredibly important in terms of the knowledge and understanding of the royal commission,” Johnston says.

Email David Murray