No money can make up for pedophile evil in state school system

Justice Peter McClellan, Chair of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Victorian government is facing a compensation bill of hundreds of millions of dollars over historical child sex offending by pedophile teachers active within the state’s education department.

Some were primary school teachers, others offended against children in high schools. The department had no policy on how to manage pedophile teachers and when complaints grew, school principals and district inspectors would contrive a solution, often with the knowledge of senior department officials. Pedophile teachers were quietly moved on to new schools, more often than not into regional and rural areas, and on to unsuspecting children.

In one case, a teacher named Bill Allen was prosecuted for sexual assault of children in a primary school in 1966 and given a bond. His teaching certificate was never formally withdrawn. Five years later, he reapplied and was given a new teaching post. He was a prolific offender and his victims would go on to number in the hundreds.

The behaviour of the Victorian Education Department was no different to that of the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church or any other institution engaged in teaching children. One wonders, too, what the Royal Commission into Institutionalised Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was doing and how these cases were not the examined in public hearings.

One high school teacher, Peter Sutton, now in his 70s, taught at Rosebud High School between 1974 and 1981, his first school appointment. He was moved on from the school after complaints were made about his conduct. Some parents made reports to police but records indicate the police came to a view that Sutton’s behaviour did not warrant criminal prosecution.

Sutton had a practice of photographing boys in sexualised positions. He is alleged to have committed acts of gross indecency while male students posed. Attempts were made to hypnotise boys. According to former students spoken to by The Australian, the hypnosis to put them in a suggestible state invariably failed.

Nevertheless, Sutton’s conduct involved intricate grooming and on the basis of litigated claims made against the state of Victoria, it is alleged he committed sexual assaults, including penetrative rape. Many witnesses claim Sutton had attempted to groom them, often with attempts to lure them to his home near Rosebud.

Sutton was then transferred to Monterey High School near Frankston. His colleagues were unaware of the circumstances of his enforced transfer but the principal did know and an agreement had been made where Sutton was prohibited from being involved in school theatre productions in a piecemeal attempt to prevent him preying on boys in extra-curricular activities. One former teacher at the school recalls Sutton produced a photo album in the staffroom. The photographs were a mix of school activities at Rosebud but also featured boys posing. The teacher and his colleagues took the view that Sutton was “creepy”.

At the same time, Sutton was also lurking around amateur repertory groups in the area, suspected of grooming child actors in local theatres, using the same techniques. After six years at Monterey High School, complaints about his behaviour continued to arise and another enforced transfer took place. He was sent to teach at Ballam Park Technical School – now McClelland College – near Frankston. He taught at the school for less than two years. His teaching record shows he retired “due to ill-health” in August 1988.

One victim has no hope of compensation. Permitted to wander off into the community and to a new group of boys, Sutton started a youth culture magazine, known as Buzz Magazine, in the early 1990s. Scott and other writers at the magazine confirm Sutton had no apparent health issues. He had no great interest in contemporary music, either. It is entirely conceivable the magazine itself was created for the purpose of abusing children. The Australian is aware there were at least two work experience children sent to Sutton’s home. Scott started working for Sutton as a 15-year-old boy.

Peter Sutton

Scott had entered a Buzz competition and won a CD. Sutton told Scott, who lived on the Mornington Peninsula, he would deliver his prize personally. Scott, like a lot of teenage boys, was unsure of his future and not particularly fond of school, so when Sutton came to his home offering not just a free CD but a chance to work as a writer on the magazine, he leapt at it. He would be working on a part-time basis at Sutton’s McCrae home. Scott’s parents were delighted.

Scott told The Australian he was subject to sexual abuse at the hands of Sutton, who allegedly committed numerous acts of gross indecency and sexual assault on the then teen over a period of almost three years. Scott recalls being told by Sutton that the magazine wasn’t making money and Scott could make more money as a male model. That was one way to entice him into posing for Sutton. Scott lived in fear of the photos one day being published.

Years after Scott escaped Sutton’s clutches, he had a chance meeting on a train with his old school librarian at Frankston High School. Sutton had never taught there. The librarian told Scott: “I always wondered what happened to you because you went to work for that man, the abuser.”

Sutton’s behaviour was well known across the teaching fraternity in the area. In total across the three schools Sutton taught at, there are 18 known litigated claims against the Victorian Education Department. Scott’s torment at the hands of Sutton should not have occurred. Sutton should not have been free to indecently deal with children in the community. Warnings, public notices, even some well aimed gossip may not have ended his appalling behaviour but at least people would have known the threat Sutton posed. Instead there was a veil of secrecy.

What was needed was one good man to put a stop to the practice of moving pedophile teachers on to new schools and new victims, and now we know there weren’t any. Peter Sutton has not been charged with any offence. Attempts to contact Sutton were unsuccessful.