By Adam Carey
The head of high-fee Catholic boys' school St Kevin's College has said he made a mistake giving a reference to a colleague convicted of sexual grooming a year 9 student, as victims' advocate Chrissie Foster joined school parents in calling for his resignation.
In a statement provided to The Age, school headmaster Stephen Russell said the reference, given to a court in 2015 at the request of convicted former coach Peter Kehoe, was an error of judgment.
Former St Kevin's College coach Peter Kehoe was convicted of grooming a student at the Catholic boys' school.Credit: Pat Scala
Kehoe was found guilty in April 2015 of grooming a child under the age of 16 and was given a community corrections order and placed on the sex offenders register for eight years.
Kehoe’s grooming included taking a year 9 student, Paris Street, into his bedroom and inviting the boy to engage in a sex act, something the victim told the ABC's Four Corners was "one of the most scary times in my life".
Mr Russell provided a magistrate with a post-conviction reference noting Kehoe had served the school for 35 years. He said he did so at the request of Kehoe’s lawyers.
Paris told the ABC that "it makes you feel betrayed" to learn that the man who hounded him with explicit messages and crude innuendo had been personally and professionally endorsed by the school's principal and its dean of sports.
Paris and his friend Ned O'Brien, to whom he confided Kehoe's grooming and who became a witness at the trial, told Four Corners they received no support from the school before the trial.
Paris was cross-examined for two days by top QC, Robert Richter, who was engaged to defend Kehoe.
According to Ned's mother, Mr Russell also phoned her on the morning of the trial and asked if the boys were going to wear their St Kevin's blazers.
"I thought, 'Wow, you really do want to cover this up'," Ms O'Brien told Four Corners.
In the wake of the abuse and the trial, Paris struggled through his last years of school and suffered anxiety and panic attacks, eventually needing psychiatric treatment in hospital.
"Mum would drive me to school in the morning. Driving on the Boulevard, and then you’d see the big cross on the chapel that overlooks the Yarra – I’d see that and I’d just get triggered and would have a panic attack and would not want to go to school.
"I wouldn’t want to go to sleep at night because I wouldn’t want to get up in the morning to go to school," Paris told Four Corners.
On Monday night, Mr Russell said providing Kehoe with a reference was a mistake and he would not have done so now.
But one of Australia’s most prominent advocates for victims of child sexual abuse said that Mr Russell should resign over the reference.
Chrissie Foster, the mother of two daughters who were sexually abused by a Catholic priest while students at Oakleigh Sacred Heart Primary School in the 1990s, said his actions suggested he should not be in charge of a school.
“I think he has shown that he should not be headmaster,” Ms Foster said.
His decision to give a reference “says that these children are of no importance, [that] our children don't matter to the clergy, the priesthood or their school system,” she said.
“I think the actions he took say that he is not a responsible person, he is part of the problem, not part of the solution.”
The school’s dean of sport, Luke Travers, also issued a character reference for Kehoe in 2015.
The reference detailed Kehoe's "commitment, enthusiasm, reliability" and his life membership of St Kevin's Amateur Athletics Club, but was silent about the fact he had been accused of child grooming.
When Paris returned to St Kevin’s after a brief spell at another school, he was made to meet with Mr Travers, Four Corners reported. During that meeting, which was documented by a school psychologist, Mr Travers said he "felt obliged" to support Kehoe.
"As a friend, I did not want him to be convicted," Mr Travers said, according to the ABC.
Mr Russell issued a statement on Monday night expressing his “sincere regret” for giving a character reference at the time of Kehoe’s conviction.
Mr Russell said the reference he provided to the court was “a limited, factual letter … with the very clear instructions that it could only be used by the court in a sentencing process, post conviction”.
“The background to the decision made at the time about providing the reference, was that prior to his reprehensible actions in 2014, Mr Kehoe had no prior charges, or any student or parent complaint of a sexual misconduct nature,” he wrote.
“However, people make errors of judgement … In the same circumstances today, I would not provide a reference. I sincerely regret that I did so in 2014.”
St Kevin’s had been bracing for several days over a Four Corners report screened on Monday night detailing its handling of the matter.
The school also received a barrage of negative media coverage late last year after a group of boys in school uniform were filmed making a sexually derogatory chant on a crowded tram.
The video quickly went viral.
"I wish that all the ladies/ Were holes in the road/ If I was a dump truck/ I'd fill them with my load,” the call-and response chant went.
In reference to Four Corners’ looming report, Mr Russell wrote to parents late last week with some lines quoted from Irish poet John O’Donohue:
‘This is the time to be slow/ Lie low to the wall/ Until the bitter weather passes’.”
The ABC reported on Monday that Paris Street settled a civil claim with the school last year.
Edmund Rice Education Australia, which directs St Kevin’s College, was contacted for comment.