Geelong Grammar: head thought abuser Jonathan Harvey ‘low risk’

John Lewis, Former Principal of Geelong Grammar and Eton College in England, leaves the County Court in Melbourne after giving evidence to the child abuse Royal Commission hearing.

The former headmaster of Geelong Grammar and Eton has described the scale of the “alleged incidents” by sex offenders Jonathan Harvey, Philippe Trutmann and the inappropriate behaviour towards students by Andrew MacCulloch as “comparatively modest”.

John Lewis was the headmaster of Geelong Grammar when he received complaints that Harvey had tried to have sex with a student and that Harvey had allegedly abused another student on an overseas trip in the 1980s.

He was also the headmaster when Philippe Trutmann abused BIW in his first two weeks at the school and who was expelled after disclosing the abuse.

Trutmann pleaded guilty in 2005 to abusing 40 students from Geelong Grammar.

Mr Lewis told the child sex royal commission said he had no recollection of an allegation that MacCulloch had masturbated a student but said he had received complaints that he became overly familiar with students, singled boys out, bought them gifts and made a nuisance of himself.

MacCulloch took his own life in November 1991 following his dismissal from the school.

Counsel assisting the commission, David Lloyd, said it must have been clear to Mr Lewis by September 1991 that there was a very significant problem at the school in relation to the relationships between some of the staff and some of the students which demanded action.

“Any such incident is very, very serious but the scale of the alleged incidents that had occurred was in the scheme of things comparatively modest,” Mr Lewis responded.

“Well it’s worse than nil, but if you are, if I may say so, creating the impression that sexual abuse was rife - it is not, in my opinion, a fair description of the overall situation.”

Mr Lewis refused to accept potential findings put by Mr Lloyd that the school’s system did not protect and promote the interests of the students.

“Instead it was a system that was designed to, and did, protect the reputation of the school in preference to the interests of the students,” Mr Lloyd said.

“I do not accept that finding,” Mr Lewis said.

He also refused to accept the proposition that as headmaster he did not treat the issue of child sexual abuse seriously, and on a number of occasions preferred the reputation of the school to the interests and welfare of the students under his care.

He further refused to accept that if he had investigated allegations of child sexual abuse that came to his attention, it was likely that a number of students at Geelong Grammar who were abused would not have been abused.

Earlier today the inquiry heard how Mr Lewis had been told a Geelong student had been sexually abused by a teacher but the school did not investigate.

Mr Lewis told the royal commission that he considered the risk of the teacher abusing students at the school to be low despite allegations he had sexually assaulted a pupil on an overseas trip.

Mr Lewis, who has also been headmaster of Eton, told the commission a father approached him at a cricket match in the mid-1980s and told him Jonathan Harvey abused his son while on an overseas trip which was not associated with the school.

He said the father did not want the matter investigated and he respected the father’s wishes.

“I think many people, including many parents, would take the view that in a matter of this sort their wishes must be abided by and adhered to,” he said.

“Any investigation, step 1, certainly the first of two — certainly among the first two steps, would have been to talk to the boy in question and that was not what father wanted me to do.”

Mr Lewis said the sexual abuse occurred during a private overseas vacation and the risk of it occurring at school was much lower.

“I did not take the view that boys in general or pupils in general were at daily or regular risk of being abused.

”I believe that the circumstances in 1986 were unusual and atypical; holidays, 12,000 miles away. The risk of sexual abuse at school was very, very, very much lower.”

Mr Lewis said he had “inherited a dilemma” from the father which he did not believe he could solve by himself.

“I didn’t find the conversations in any way disagreeable, but they did leave me in a quandary from which I could not extricate myself,” he said.

He said he had no reason to disbelieve the father that his son had been abused by Harvey and possibly others on the trip.

It followed a previous allegation in 1982 where Harvey allegedly touched a student’s genitals.

Mr Lewis yesterday told the commission he recalled being told the complaint concerned a massage for a rugby injury to the thigh.

“The occasions on which alleged sexual abuse took place were rare,” he said today.

“In one case in 1986, untested, uninvestigated for reasons that I have tried to explain.

“The earlier incident in 1982 was, at least in some crucial respects open to dispute and different statements; it was rendered problematical by the different things that had been said about what occurred.”

Allegations against Harvey again arose in 2004 and he retired a year early following a discussion with then headmaster Nicholas Sampson, who is the current headmaster of Cranbrook.

Harvey was paid his salary for 2005.

Harvey pleaded guilty in 2007 to ten counts of sexual abuse and gross indecency against a Geelong Grammar student from the 1970s.