Forced to watch porn: Another ex-Ballarat Grammar boarder sues over ‘traumatic initiations’

A former boarder at Ballarat Grammar has taken the prestigious private school to court, claiming “physical, sexual and psychological” abuse he suffered from fellow students left him mentally scarred and battling drug and alcohol problems.

But lawyers for the school have pushed back, telling the Supreme Court the claims of hazing at one of the school’s boarding houses do not meet the legal bar for compensation and are likely to be thrown out of court.

Ballarat Grammar is investigating an alleged “punishment ring” at a boarding house.Credit: Joe Armao

The Age revealed last month that police had been called in over an alleged series of assaults on junior boarders by their senior schoolmates, with 10 students sent home over the “strapping” claims and an external expert hired to investigate.

The alleged assaults Ballarat police are investigating are said to have occurred in 2023 and 2024. The state’s education regulator, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority, also says it is making inquiries.

Lawyers for the man, who asked that his name not be published, have told the court their client, who boarded for five years at Ballarat Grammar in the 2000s, was “frequently subjected to bullying and harassment which included physical and sexual abuse, perpetrated by other students resident of the boarding house”.

The plaintiff said he was subjected to “traumatic initiations” which involved physical assaults and was made to drink alcohol to excess.

He said he and other junior boarders were forced to watch pornography and examined by the older boys to see if they had erections.

A similar incident was recounted to The Age this month by former boarder Renato Manias, one of several men who have spoken out about patterns of abuse at the grammar school’s boarding houses going back to the 1950s.

Manias, now a successful Melbourne financial adviser, has not sued the school.

But another former student, former Age journalist Michael Short, recently settled through mediation a three-year Supreme Court case against Ballarat Grammar over abuse he said he suffered while boarding there as a child in the 1970s.

Documents filed to the court in the most recent case on behalf of the unnamed former student, allege the school breached its duty of care to him, resulting in his education being compromised and triggering post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, cannabis use disorder and alcohol use disorder.

The former student’s law firm, Angela Sdrinis Legal, says the school and senior staff members there at the time failed in their duty of care by “allowing or acquiescing to the development of a culture at the boarding house which led to students inflicting and perpetrating on one another hazing rituals … physical abuse and sexual abuse”.

The lawyers say the school failed to prevent bullying, initiations and drinking and “failed to supervise students sufficiently or at all”.

The lawyers for the school, Melbourne firm Colin Biggers & Paisley, say Ballarat Grammar does not admit to the allegations and that some of them are “vague, ambiguous and embarrassing” and likely to be thrown out of court.

They also argue that much of the plaintiff’s case is “statute blocked” because it was filed outside the time limits for personal injury cases and that the sexual aspects do not clear the legal bar set for exemptions in the legislation designed to allow claims for historical sexual abuse allegations.

The former student, the school and their respective lawyers are set for mediation this month.

A spokesperson for Ballarat Grammar declined to comment.

“We have nothing further to offer The Age,” she said. “Ballarat Grammar has a policy of not disclosing details of individuals. This is in line with Australian Privacy Principles.”

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