Child sex abuse royal commission: Geelong Grammar a 'hot house of violent acts' with 'subculture of brutality'
By Sarah FarnsworthABC Australia
This is the second 'prestigious' school attended by Prince Charles with a history of bullying and child sex abuse.
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| Dr Robert Llewellyn-Jones, former Geelong Grammar student told the hearing Reverend John Davison tried to hypnotise him. (AAP: Julian Smith) |
Opening the two-week public hearing in Melbourne, Counsel Assisting the inquiry David Lloyd said five former staff from Geelong Grammar had been convicted of sexual abuse, including former live-in boarding house assistant Phillippe Trutmann, who abused more than 40 students between 1985 and 1996.
Other former staff convicted include: Graham Leslie Dennis, teacher and boarding house master John Hamilton Buckley, and former teachers Jonathan Harvey and Stefan van Vuuren.
The commission also heard details of allegations against school chaplains, other teachers and former students.
It heard senior staff, including at least two former principals, covered up the abuse.
The abuse may have begun as teenaged sexual exploration but it ended in indecent assault.
Dr Robert Llewellyn-Jones, former Geelong Grammar student
Former student Doctor Robert Llewellyn-Jones told the inquiry in the 1970s former chaplain Reverend John Davison tried to hypnotise him using a watch, before he attempted to assault him in a locked study.
"He drew a watch from his trouser pocket and started to swing it at eye level," he said.
"He told me sex was natural and that it was good for him, and to tell him everything about my sex life.
"He wanted to know if I was sexually attracted to other boys ... he told me he could teach me about sex and I could do it with him so I could get very good at it."
The commission heard a 14-year-old bully would intimidate young boys with highly sexualised talk, climb into bed with them and try to force them to masturbate him.
"[It] was, at times, a hot-house of violent acts and testosterone," Dr Llewellyn-Jones said.
"The abuse may have begun as teenaged sexual exploration but it ended in indecent assault."
He saw his friend pinned down by a group of boys, who then "black balled" him, which involved smearing boot polish over his genitals.
"There was a subculture of brutality. As part of this subculture it was a given that this brutality had to be kept hidden from the outside world," Dr Llewellyn-Jones said.
A man known only as BKU told the inquiry Buckley, the boarding house master, sexually assaulted him after offering to help him remove body paint after a drama performance.
"He took me to his study where he insisted I remove all clothes and underwear to allow him to remove the paint. I was acutely embarrassed," BKU said.
"He began stroking and feeling my penis. I was so timid I kept turning away."
BKU said he was also raped by Reverend Norman Smith, who was an assistant chaplain at Geelong Grammar's campus in the Victorian Alps called Timber Top, which Prince Charles attended in the 1960s.
"The first occasion I was abused by Reverend Smith another boy was present. He was a much smaller boy," he said.
"Reverend Smith chased us around his private quarters. He would try to draw us on his lap so he could fondle us.
"He would try and draw both of [us into] his lap and we had to fight and push him away."
BKU told the commission two days later he was raped by Reverend Smith.
BKU said he never reported the abuse as he felt Geelong Grammar had a punishing culture and because he was bullied.
He told the commission another staff member must have known about the abuse, as he took the boy to his house, unlocked his liquor cupboard and told him "to get good and drunk".
He was left there for several days.
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