Trinity Grammar staffer Mark Watson sentenced over sex abuse as boarding house master
A Trinity Grammar school staffer has been jailed for forcing students to perform vile sex acts that he claimed were part of “teaching” them.
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A Trinity Grammar school staffer could die in prison after he was sentenced for historic sex abuse against six boys over a decade.
Mark Ivor Watson, 67, was sentenced to 15 years and seven months in jail, with a minimum parole period of 10 years and six months.
The County Court heard Watson began sexually abusing boys when he was working as a boarding house master at the Kew school while studying to be a teacher in the 1970s.
He invited three students to his parents’ home on separate occasions, abused them and forced them to perform sex acts.
“I’m teaching you,” Watson told one of the boys.
One student said he accepted an offer of a lift home from Watson on a hot day, when he was assaulted in the passenger seat.
Another recalled staying at the boarding house because his mum was ill, where he met Watson who “liked to hug people”.
“He recalls at the time he did not have a father at home and his mother was very sick and he was vulnerable. The accused would often give him hugs,” court documents show.
The three student victims came from difficult family backgrounds, making them “easy targets”, Judge James Parrish noted.
Watson was found guilty by a jury in March of 19 charges — 13 of indecent assault, five of the now-obsolete charge of buggery and one of attempted buggery.
In May, Watson admitted abusing a further three boys between 1982 and 1985, pleading guilty to a further four charges — two of indecent assault and two of sexual penetration of a child aged between 10 and 16 years old.
The boys had approached Watson to do odd jobs, including mowing and weeding work for pocket money at his Toorak property.
In one case, a boy, 13, recalled how Watson plied him with alcohol and told him he couldn’t ride his bike home.
He woke in the night to being sexually assaulted.
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Some of Watson’s victims sat in court crying as the sentence was read.
Judge James Parrish told Watson he had “breached the trust that these boys had in you. You breached the trust of the school and the parents of the victims”.
“Your offending has had a profound effect on the lives of each of them,” he said.
“The overwhelming theme is the devastating and lasting impact that your offending has had.”
Trinity school council chairman John Gillam released a statement to families, saying the school was “deeply sorry” to the former students for the suffering they experienced then, and afterwards.
“Sexual abuse is abhorrent and has a catastrophic impact on the lives of those abused and their friends and families,” he said.
“It takes courage to stand up to perpetrators of these crimes and, in this case, we commend the three Old Trinity Grammarians for their bravery in holding Mark Watson to account.
“Trinity is deeply sorry for the suffering these three old boys experienced, both at the time of the offending and in the years that followed.
“We will continue to offer whatever counselling and support we can for their future welfare.”