‘Wake up call’: Sydney boys’ school principal says parents have obligation to not enable sexual assault at parties

A Sydney boys’ school principal has doubled down on comments that branded parents who allow underage parties as ‘foolish’ after a petition about sex assault.

The headmaster of a private Sydney boys’ school says that he wrote a letter to parents telling them not to be “foolish” by allowing drunken parties because they needed a “wake-up call”.

Trinity Grammar headmaster Tim Bowden wrote the letter last week warning them that by hosting, or allowing their children to host such parties, they were complicit in creating opportunities for sexual assault.

It comes after thousands of women from around Australia recounted their stories of sexual assault and rape at the hands of schoolboys as uncovered in a petition by former Kambala schoolgirl Chanel Contos.

Many of the women allege they were attacked at house parties.

Trinity Grammar School headmaster Tim Bowden has called on parents to stop allowing underage parties, saying they are breeding grounds for sexual assault.

Speaking to 2GB on Monday, Mr Bowden said he felt compelled to write to parents after reading the testimonies, saying he hoped it would serve as a “wake-up call”.

“Anyone who’s read the testimonies of these young women must be compelled to think ‘what can we do?’ to keep them safe,” he said.

“There were more than 2000 stories. The thing that caught my attention is the scale and scope of the issue.

“Many involved these types of parties, which take place in homes with significant intoxication and space for people to be taken off to the side and apparently no effective supervision.”

He said as a parent of teenage girls, he understood the pressure parents faced in allowing children to host the parties, but they needed to step up.

“This is not a game of being a cool parent, this is a situation where people are getting hurt,” he said.

“We have a moral obligation to stand in the way of this hurt.

“Reading the testimonies opened this up. The girls have reflected on something that happened to them when they were 13, 14, or 15 and years later continues to scar them. It affects their ability to trust people.”

Mr Bowden’s comments come in the wake of Chanel Contos’s petition calling for consent to be included earlier in Australia’s sex education syllabus. Picture: @chanelc/Instagram

Mr Bowden said while the main concern was making sure there are “no perpetrators”, he said parents had the responsibility of keeping teenagers safe by removing the enabling factors.

“Don’t have the parties. Any parent that throws a party where alcohol is allowed is being an absolute fool and creating great difficulty for the little people coming to them,” he said.

He added that young women also needed to take “some protective action for themselves”.

“Not because boys will be boys but because we lock our cars because some people can’t be trusted … We lock our houses because some people can’t be trusted,” he said.

“At these parties, there is every chance there will be people who can’t be trusted. It’s good sense to be safe.”

As Ms Contos’s petition for consent to be included earlier in Australian schools’ sex education syllabus clocks up 30,000 signatures, Mr Bowden said his message to teenage boys was simple: respect.

“Consent is just one way respect for other people plays out,” he said.

“Respect is an issue all around the state, in all education systems. They get too caught up in themselves and don’t respect (women).

“That’s the big cultural change that is necessary from our school corridors to Parliament House.”