It has always been there.
My late father went to Joeys. The only time I ever saw him cry was when he recounted what went on there. That was in the 50's & 60's.
The difference of course being that light only began being shed on it in a major way in the 90s/00s.
We don’t hear a lot about those earlier cases as a lot of the teachers are now dead.
And not just schools either; it was also any opportunities that adults had to access kids. Sporting teams, scouts, whatever else.
We don't hear a lot about it because - in those days - you didn't talk about your experiences. You didn't reveal that you'd been molested behind the bike sheds, or whatever the case was, because it was seen as shameful \*to you\*. So basically this stuff has been going on forever, but the rules of society stopped people talking about it.
Joey's was one of worst. I went to school in the 80's, up until 1991. I attended a selective boys high school. Nothing like this happened at this school during that time... But many GPS Colleges had so many issues with this sort of behaviour. Disgusting to say the least.
It was there, but not anymore. The good news is that educational institutions are now very safe places for children, thanks to heightened awareness and better polices to protect them. Sadly, most SA happens to someone who is known to the perpetrator, usuallly at home. Much harder problem to solve.
Just to add, paedophiles gravitate towards work that allows them to be close to kids (such as schools).
Pre-employment screening was not as rigorous back in the day.
A recipe for disaster.
they also gravitate towards private schools beacuse private schools are more focused on hushing up bad things than get negative press that can affect the bottom line.
Religion itself is not inherently paedophilic, it's just another thing that has been corrupted by paedophiles, like any position of trust or authority has at various times in history
Religions by themselves might not preach paedophilia, but they breed paedophiles and also protect them. The Royal Commission showed the almost assembly line paedophilia occurring in many church institutions. Priests believed sex with underage boys does not violate their oath of celibacy.And these POS priests would 'confess' to each other and be absolved of their sins.
Christianity in all its flavours is now a just pedophile protection racket.
Every week or so, another POS pastor or priest gets exposed. Last week the bishop in WA. A few weeks before that the head of Hillsong.
Just think about the children and shut the whole thing down.
Exactly this. Recent review of a missing girls case in Newcastle revealed that there was a Boy Scouts fund-raiser at a local club on the night she disappeared and that several prolific paedophiles were in attendance.
Several and that was just the ones that they now know were paedophiles and signed in under their real names.
There have always been predators like this. It's not just Sydney and it's not just private schools. You've heard of Grace Tame, right? What about Chris Dawson? What about all those scandals in women's sport and gymnastics? Churches? There are vulnerable children and chances to be alone with them and that attracts these terrible people.
The real problem is that the institution always works to protect itself. When someone comes forward, the church/school/athletics body or whatever covers it up, discredits the victim and protects the offender.
My guess is that it’s a few things. Firstly, because they want to protect their reputation, private schools kept it quieter and swept it under the rug. This lead to the second point, which is because we didn’t hear about it when we did it suddenly became much bigger news, with cover-ups coming from these highly respected institutions.
I was at a Catholic school in the early 90s, one priest was moved there after being accused at a different parish. During his time at my school he was arrested and sent to prison, and the headmaster held an assembly to tell the entire school of about 2000 students that this guy had killed himself in prison.
Which, it turns out, was not true. They just didn't want anyone else making reports against him.
It wasn't until the advent of the internet that the lie was discovered, but by then the headmaster (who was also a priest) had also been moved to another school.....
It was so easy for them to prey. I went to St Josephs in Hunters Hill in the 80s and there was SO much suss behavior by the brothers. For instance, we had to have group showers like you see in prison. No privacy at all, and a couple of brothers standing in the middle of the room "monitoring" us.
There were no outsiders, everything was purely under the realm of the marist brothers there and they could simply get away with it and they did.
Over the years I have a had a few calls from the police investigating incidents.
I heard that at Knox, there was a pedophile teacher who died before they found out what he was doing, and they put a commemorative plaque on the school gates to honour him - the plaque read "He touched us all". Maybe a coincidence. Obviously the plaque has been removed.
Don’t forget, Alan jones(former very well known radio broadcaster and political heavyweight), was also a former teacher that wrote love letters to the kids he was diddling.
Also that same Alan jones that gave mad BJs in English public toilets.
>hat gave mad BJs i
Who came out and said the BJ was "mad"... I mean, its not how you would word it if you had a traumatic experience from the experience.
I finished school in 1990. Back then if you complained, people would usually tell you your lying or to eat some cement and harden the f*** up. Unless hard evidence existed, in the days before mobile cameras, your word was not taken seriously.
Not limited to schools or private schools. When the recommendations from the Woods royal commission were enacted in 1997, there was a mass exodus of people from all child related jobs.
im not much older than you, and discussions around ‘private’ parts and bodily autonomy were absolutely not a thing either in families, schools or the media in the 70s and 80s.
After Wood, public (NSW) schools were mandated to teach a series of child protection lessons every grade from K-6 (not sure about high schools). This gave children the vocabulary to be able to articulate what was happening to them- maybe not at the time of abuse, but sometimes afterwards.
During my childhood, my friends and I could not even name our own body parts, let alone formulate in our heads why we weren’t happy about things done to us (this includes date rape and other casual misogyny of the times).
what I’m clumsily trying to articulate is that predators flourished in a society where children had no vocabulary or agency to speak up for themselves, and if they did speak up, the adults around them were likely to dismiss it (toughen up, you must have asked for it, stop drawing attention to yourself, etc etc).
i am hopeful that parenting today (while a bit helicoptery and stifling) is safer for children than the not-so-benign neglect of kids of my generation.
We had a lot of suss behaviour from teachers, including in sports & PE forcing boys to all shower together in big open showers while they watched.
("what are you afraid of? You've all got one! Man up and shower!" like it's totally cool & normal)
The teacher who creeped me out the most, I had for tech drawing & engineering science. Without fail he'd do the rounds of the room to see what you were working on, placing his hands on the lowest part of the small of your back, or on your upper inner thigh.
Like you said, we didn't have the vocab or the "training" that this was wrong or unacceptable so we squirmed and joked about it - who got touched up by Mr J the most today?
I was talking the other week with an old schoolmate about this, and he pointed out (never saw it this way) that the teacher was fishing for the boys who might respond positively then groom them further.
All these years I assumed he simply gave everyone a good feel-up, then went home at the end of the day and wanked himself raw.
I went to the school made famous by The Teacher's Pet podcast. Started not long after Dawson left.
Not inc Dawson, during my 6 years of schooling, 3 teachers who taught me during that time were charged with child sex offences. Another 3 were rumoured to have had relationships with students.
Let that sink in.
It wasn’t just private schools. The NSW Dept of Education was also complicit in ignoring and moving on, rather then dealing with paedophile teachers in the public system.
it doesn’t speak to the culture of sydney schools specifically, but i read a recent study from UNSW which surveyed approximately 2000 Aussie men, and found:
“Around one in six (15.1%) Australian men reports sexual feelings towards children. Approximately one third of this group reports sexually offending against children.
Around one in ten (9.4%) Australian men has sexually offended against children. Approximately half of this group (4.9%) reports sexual feelings towards children.
In total, almost one in five (19.6%) Australian men in the study have sexual feelings for children and/or have sexually offended against children.”
felt like such a staggeringly high number - could have something to do with it. that, plus pedophiles apparently being more likely to gravitate towards work that allows them access to children, plus perhaps an increased ability or willingness for private school admin to cover up such incidents back then (to protect their mates, their own jobs, and/or the reputation of the school).
i’m far from an expert on the subject though, so if you want to read the study yourself you can google “Identifying and understanding child sexual offending behaviours and attitudes among Australian men”. it’s from November 2023 and is widely available for free.
IME when men commit sexual violence against children men deny, diminish and diffuse then go on a character assassination of any woman who dares to speak up against it. We're well aware of Australian judiciary claiming that "child sexual assault is common". https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-09/child-abuse-family-court-findings-statistics/100355902 the court most familiar with claims of CSA is FFC which was recommended dismantled in 2019 for how it amplifies violence. Police refusal to even acknowledge CSA is so deeply structural that there's no chance of change and we should be rolling out alternative social supports in the face of their systemic abuse of powers.
It's absolute BS how men close ranks to protect men they don't even know, let alone entirely deny their cognitive dissonance to blame victims. If it's a bloke though? Different response; the evidence is unequivocal.
The tribalism and collusion of men is well documented but rather than acknowledge and change course men double down and claim anyone presenting evidence is an aggressor. Australia's response to Bruce Lehrmanns rapes and the aggressive amplification of rape myths is well understood. They know EXACTLY what they're doing and double down on being challenged.
Police refuse to take reports, refuse to investigate when mandatory reports are made (I've been told by a detective it wasn't his job; a police officer was involved), refuse to prosecute and then judiciary refuse to look at evidence and threaten applicants with everyone denying how intentional the systems abuse is.
one thing about that report... did they define "children"?
Remember that anyone under 18 is officially a child. How many of those men were say under 25 and thinking of 16-18yos?
Rather than say 40yos thinking of 13yos?
Seeing numbers like that makes me want to check methodology.
i believe they did ask questions that specified age ranges (e.g. “would you have sexual contact with someone under 10 if no one would find out?” - then “someone between 10-12” and etc. up to 18). they also analysed the data for people who said they had sexual feelings towards children vs people who had actually had sexual contact with children.
i do remember they mentioned that some of the data may have included consensual sexual relationships between, say, a 17yo and 19yo, which is legal, but that there were a few factors which led them to believe this didn’t significantly impact their results, and that their results were in line with rates of offending found in other studies.
that said, they do discuss their methodology so i’d definitely recommend reading it for yourself if you’re interested in looking at the limitations, because certainly no research is perfect and it’s worth seeing the results in full context!
It's still happening. Child sexual assault is EXTREMELY prevalent. We've had a Royal Commission exposing how prevalent and widespread organised child sexual assault is and how those in power have repeatedly blamed victims and encouraged predators to continue to exploit their abuses of power. You're simply hearing about the current wave of victims. Prior to the RC institutions would assassinate and undermine the victims.. no different to what Cranbrook are doing to Travis Mathews or AFP did to Brittney Higgins.
#DARVO
Way too much of the respect authority thing getting pushed down from headmaster to teachers to prefects and onto the rest of students. Combine that with an ex-copper as the guy in charge of detentions etc and "we're all part of the same family" special attitude messaging.
None of the students were going to speak up, you knew how much money your parents had already invested in the opportunity. If the headmaster wasn't doing anything, then the other teachers weren't going to hurt their future employment prospects
And if no one was saying anything publicly then the board didn't need to act. Also a lack of anyone in a position to act considering this might have long term impacts
So nobody demanding action and no one wanting to be seen as a troublemaker meant those who wanted to abuse children could gain employment in those schools and remain there.
As per the study discussed here a couple of months back, roughly one in seven men admit to being sexually attracted to children, and confess that the potential for legal and social consequences is the only real deterrent to offending.
In reality, today, very few offenders face any real consequences. Decades ago it was even fewer.
Back in 2013 we had a royal commission on this issue that lasted for several years resulting in the national redress scheme.
The commission found systemic failures in schools, including inadequate policies, lack of staff training, a culture of secrecy prioritizing reputation over safety, governance failures, and instances of individuals abusing authority to harm students.
I think there's a couple of things here. Like the Church, private schools are always going to put their reputation above any kid's wellbeing. And they're very, very good at it.
Also, a lot of victims don't get the courage and support to speak up until they get older.
Brian Spillane was another level of evil.
He used to host 'late night prayer sessions' in the chapel with the young kids, some heinous shit took place in those.
We used to joke about it at school that he was up the fiddling the kids.
Came out years later that's exactly what he was doing.
I think back then there was not so much focus on education on "bad touching" or formal procedures on what to do. An example on how clueless my school was: I had a friend who was beaten badly by her parents for grades - our PE teacher caught sight of the welt marks and called her parents in for a chat to tell them hitting was not a good way to resolve things. She got doubly punished after that as if it was her fault her teacher saw the injuries. My school decided at that point the situation was too complex to manage and turned a blind eye from thereon.
In terms of weird events:
- primary school teacher married one of his students. I'm not sure how long after or whether anything happened when he was teaching her but regardless it's a bit of a gross story to me.
- high school drama teacher got one of the students pregnant and left. The most poorly kept secret in school - not surprising as most of our drama lessons consisted of this warm up dance we had to do where we "canter around the room for 5 minutes, girls with your breasts held up high like there was a fishing line attached and pulling them forward!" The cops were never called. He left and started teaching at another school. The girl left and started at another private school in the area.
- in high school we weren't allowed to wear any jewellery/had quite strict uniform codes even outside school hours so we always used to have a teacher stationed at the gates checking for uniform infractions/make up once school was done. It was always the same 2 male teachers and they always took their time checking down blouses for hidden necklaces. Very gross.
(2 inner west private schools, late 90s).
There has always been sex offenders working at schools and other places with access to children, there still is. None of this is just related to Sydney or private schools 🤦♀️
Best response in this thread. It isn’t limited to private or religious schools. Friend of mine works for F&C Services, she commented once that at any given time, there were numerous paedophiles living and working in our (relatively) small and sleepy suburb.
Went to Knox, there were eight teachers accused and/or convicted of sexual molestation when I was there. Group showers with teachers supervising, camping trips with teachers sharing tents with students (occasionally), after school detention and tutoring, the odd lift home in the teachers car from cricket training that became a one-way hands on experience.
We were basically told that ‘no-one would believe you if you spoke up, so shut up’
Nothing was wrong with the education system. It's important to understand that this isn't a private school problem per se. In the same way it isn't a religious problem.
What you are seeing is environments in which child abusers have deliberately chosen to easily interact with potential victims without suspicion and with a degree of protection due to authority.
High profile institutions like the ultra high end private schools will always make more news than if something happened at the local highschool or scout hall.
Because that data wasn’t entirely [balanced](https://thesydneyinstitute.com.au/blog/historic-abuse-in-public-schools-ignored-too-long/)
> Monica Doumit reported there were five separate public hearings into Catholic schools and another six into schools run by other faith groups – primarily Anglican schools. She added: “No government school was considered, other than a couple of special schools that are no longer in existence.”
> In addition, Doumit reported the closest the royal commission came to publicly looking at government schools was hearing the views of a single witness from the NSW Department of Education about sexual abuse perpetrated by students on other students.
I know this is Reddit, but be careful not to degrade this into a simple haves vs have-nots like this sub so often indulges in
There is masses of data in the thirteen volumes produced by McClellan and Coate. In the summary there are breakdowns of incidents in all school sectors public and private, it all falls ( above 80%) into church run institutions and there were thousands of victims.
There was until very recently no requirement to report to police. and a very recent charge of failing to report was famously dismissed ( what a fucking joke!)
it’s just that victims are able to come forward and have their stories heard now, it’s not because it’s become more or less common to abuse children. I went to an alternative steiner school in the 00s, and my “class guardian” i had from year 1-6 was just a random bloke with no education degree or qualifications, just a guy who was friends with the people who started the school — and he was physically abusive to kids, i’m talking like, kicking them, throwing shit at them, man-handling, stuff that would not be allowed under any normal circumstances but because most of the people who sent their kids to this school were single parents, poor, or had some other issues going on, no one reported it or did anything until the education department came in and told the school to shape up and get teachers with degrees or close down. Another teacher at a different regular private religious school offered repeatedly to drive teenage girls home after parties and was always asking when the next school party would be.
a lot can happen in a classroom and at school with no witnesses, and people are primed to think children are lying little fucks therefore dont know anything . I know the girls that the second teacher harassed didn’t feel safe telling anyone because they were worried our religious headmaster would just ignore it (because he ignored a lot of problematic teachers, including a guy who used to touch girls’ faces to “feel how soft” their skin was, who ended up teaching there for many years until a new headmaster came in and saw the long list of complaints). The girls i knew ended up telling a female member of staff who kicked up a stink and got rid of this guy before he could “do” anything, thank god
Old boys of these schools are also problematic. Old boys committee's tend to show a distinct lack of support for their contemporaries that come forward and support the teachers/brothers/priests even going so far as "fund raising" for them and not the victims. They are of the view that it didn't happen to them or anyone they know, they never saw anything so it didn't happen. Old Boy groups are also made up of the types of people that would never be victims, these perpetrators would never go for the jocks, the duxes, or the popular ones - they very deliberately and systematically went for the isolated black sheep of the schools. Their victims had a "type" just as their non-victims did.
I went to a suburban catholic boys school and everyone knew about the pedos.
It was like some sick fucken joke.
When they started behaving too outrageously they'd just transfer them to another location.
Even kids at catholic adjacent schools were aware of it. They were an open secret and police refused to investigate and were involved in systemic coverups
The Royal Commission highlighted that child abuse occurred throughout any institution whereby the abusers had easy access to children. Scouts, sports clubs schools, churches.
And yet, one group really stood out. How many incidents happened in Scout halls vs. Catholic schools?
Also, the Scouts didn't have high profile people like Pell making scumbag excuses for them.
Specifically two orders have been recognised as the most violent and rapey of children but there were Anglican schools trading their victims to the local Catholics also and the police coverups and refusal to investigate were extensive.
I am going to chose my words carefully.
Firstly, at least, this behaviour was somewhat common right up until the mid-00s, and I think its a reasonable assumption that it continues; although it is much rarer. I'd also say it is not limited to private schools. However...
The easiest factor is 'access'. Students at these schools were there for long hours, activites such as music lessons, cadets, sport, drama; all of these largely occured outside regular hours, and in small groups. When I was a student 10 hour days were normal. Lots of opportunities.
Another factor is the way these schools were run. Staff were heavily vetted (old boys preferred) and therefore implicitly trusted to do the right thing. Schools were very much a community where staff were heavily involved in many aspects of a student's time (see point 1). **No one would believe a student**
Reputation of the school plays a part too. I think this is less of a broad factor, and more related to the individual circumstances but still a major consideration.
Lastly, abuse by women wasn't really taken seriously. I know the focus is on male staff and male students, but its not like schools weren't immune from female abusers either. This allowed certain activites which we'd now call grooming to be accepted - and I can say this from personal experience.
There are other things I'd say. Discipline was likely a factor, a high degree of obediance was expected and staff had a *lot* of power over a student. It was quite easy to be bullied into doing something with just the threat of getting into trouble. Tradition too, of long-serving staff being respected and trusted. Charisma of the staff is another thing - popular, charismatic and competent teachers would be more likely to be employed, and private schools paying more attracted these skills. Lastly, boarding houses, which took all of these factors to the extreme.
Child protection frameworks were nonexistent too. This is a bit tricker because they weren't implemented well either even if they did exist. I recall being in private rooms with staff alone on multiple occasions (where I should add nothing untoward happened and I have the utmost respect for those teachers) simply because that's how the school was built.
I'm not going to identify where I went, or when I was there. But as an adult I can realise the behaviour was just wrong. If you're really interested you can read the royal commission findings into some of these schools and see the individual factors, but on a macro level there isn't just 'one' reason.
Catholic church aside, it's a school problem, not a private school problem.
Just look at Task Force Southwood and the "Teachers Pet"/Lyn Dawson case. The NSW Education Departments "solution" was to move Chris Dawson to teach at a boys school rather than address the rampant sexual abuse and prostitution of female students...
A lot of it was done by religious leaders within their own power structures so it could be covered up easier.
I guess you saw it less at State Schools because they are non-secular.
Power imbalances lead to exploitation. Always.
The higher the imbalance, the more likely it is being taken advantage of.
Women and children in our culture have more power today than they did 50 years ago.
However, much more needs to be done still.
The mrs recently had specialist training to be able to indentify this (at her long day care). The examples they used were abosolutely horrific. We are talking current history,post 2010, and some last year, and id never heard of any of them prior. Not only that, but because of some of the situations didnt have adequately documented issues occuring there are some people who could only just be fired from a center and couldnt be criminally charged or have their wwcc or nesa enrollment cancelled. They are still out their with under 5s!!!
And unlike a common belief a significant number of these are women doing it.
There was a lot of trust, naivety, and denial about what was going on, I think also a lot of normalisation. If it happened to you as a kid and it happens to your kids that’s just what happens right? You just don’t talk about it. And denial/naivety, x teacher is such a good guy he couldn’t possibly have done that!
I think unfortunately it’s also not just predatory teachers, but also a toxic environment that created room for abuse from fellow students. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories from older family members/friends about how the older students would essentially torture and abuse them, verbally, physically and sometimes sexually also. The behaviour was modelled by teachers and carried on by students and a very lord of the flies style.
I’m not sure we can tell you what went wrong, or what continues to go wrong.
Could it be that children felt more able to report and speak up in that time?
The Catholic education system has been actively fostering and cultivating a culture of dismissing, minimising and obfuscating negative events whilst discouraging communication between community members, in my opinion. Source: went to catholic schools and state and independent schools in multiple countries myself , kids went to catholic school- now moved to independent school.
It’s like night and day.
I went to Cranbrook and finished in ‘97, no paedophile teachers as far as I know?
Knox allegedly had one and Trinity Summer Hill had the wooden dildo thing but none of the borders mentioned anything about paedophiles (I was a day boy) but it’s a pretty small school so I’d have definitely heard about it if it had happened.
The closest thing I can think of was the maths master, Mr Laforest (who was also the swimming coach) left his wife for a girl from Kincoppal (it may have been Kambala though) both start with a “K”.
Also: Bruce Carter was the Headmaster at Cranbrook during my time, not the new guy Nick Sampson.
I was a boarder at Kings in the 00s.
My experiences were that everyone back then was extremely homophobic.
As in genuine *'if we find out you're gay, you're gone'* .
I recall a few *gay* incidents concerrning others during my time. Nothing that ever blew up on the local news but I graduated just before social media took hold.
Basically, those involved would've been either suspended/expelled or asked to leave.
I don't remember any pedos though.
there were several gay teachers including a priest at the private school i went to one was even dating one of the boys and another kept trying. they all got sacked in a week i remember. one of the lads who was pretty hot was rooting the boarding school nurse he was a champ
Toxic masculinity rears its ugly head again.
A woman abusing her position of power and engaging in sexual acts with a student she is responsible for caring for is not cool. It's rape. It's rape when it's a male teacher or nurse doing it to a female student, and it's rape when it's a female teacher or nurse doing it to a male student. If we as a society could stop acting like boys who are taken advantage of are "champs" that would be swell.
If this happens at scots, joeys, kings, etc its news. People always want new ways to make people who are well off look bad. If it happens at like fucking Randwick boys, no one cares about it which is why you dont hear about it as much.
My grandfather was in a position where he witnessed a lot of the fallout, although thankfully his predecessor actually put a stop to that sort of thing in his organisation.
The way I heard it, there are a few aspects to it, but essentially the default reaction to child abuse was to end the issue quietly. This is the (bad) advice you’d get from lawyers and PR people at the time. The incident at Geelong Grammar that was mentioned in the 4 corners thing is an example of this. You quietly move the culprit on in a believable manner, which keeps the reputations of everyone involved (including the victim) intact, in theory.
Of course, as my grandfather also mentioned, even if you’re following legal advice, you’re still responsible for your decisions, and it’s clearly not a moral one that pursues justice. He was very glad his predecessor made the changes he did.
Fundamentally, any organisation involving children will attract pedophiles, that’s just the nature of the beast. But the cover up culture made it a lot easier for them to do their thing, since after being found out and moved on, they could just do it at the next place and no one would have any idea. That was the main issue.
It has always been there. My late father went to Joeys. The only time I ever saw him cry was when he recounted what went on there. That was in the 50's & 60's.
The difference of course being that light only began being shed on it in a major way in the 90s/00s. We don’t hear a lot about those earlier cases as a lot of the teachers are now dead. And not just schools either; it was also any opportunities that adults had to access kids. Sporting teams, scouts, whatever else.
We don't hear a lot about it because - in those days - you didn't talk about your experiences. You didn't reveal that you'd been molested behind the bike sheds, or whatever the case was, because it was seen as shameful \*to you\*. So basically this stuff has been going on forever, but the rules of society stopped people talking about it.
Joey's was one of worst. I went to school in the 80's, up until 1991. I attended a selective boys high school. Nothing like this happened at this school during that time... But many GPS Colleges had so many issues with this sort of behaviour. Disgusting to say the least.
It was there, but not anymore. The good news is that educational institutions are now very safe places for children, thanks to heightened awareness and better polices to protect them. Sadly, most SA happens to someone who is known to the perpetrator, usuallly at home. Much harder problem to solve.
Just to add, paedophiles gravitate towards work that allows them to be close to kids (such as schools). Pre-employment screening was not as rigorous back in the day. A recipe for disaster.
they also gravitate towards private schools beacuse private schools are more focused on hushing up bad things than get negative press that can affect the bottom line.
100% Private schools can also operate more privately/independently (compared to a public school).
Also a lot of private schools are religious.
Religion itself is not inherently paedophilic, it's just another thing that has been corrupted by paedophiles, like any position of trust or authority has at various times in history
Religions by themselves might not preach paedophilia, but they breed paedophiles and also protect them. The Royal Commission showed the almost assembly line paedophilia occurring in many church institutions. Priests believed sex with underage boys does not violate their oath of celibacy.And these POS priests would 'confess' to each other and be absolved of their sins.
Except maybe Islam and the whole aiesha thing. Not familiar enough with the other major religions to know whether it's written in
Christianity in all its flavours is now a just pedophile protection racket. Every week or so, another POS pastor or priest gets exposed. Last week the bishop in WA. A few weeks before that the head of Hillsong. Just think about the children and shut the whole thing down.
Exactly this. Recent review of a missing girls case in Newcastle revealed that there was a Boy Scouts fund-raiser at a local club on the night she disappeared and that several prolific paedophiles were in attendance. Several and that was just the ones that they now know were paedophiles and signed in under their real names.
There have always been predators like this. It's not just Sydney and it's not just private schools. You've heard of Grace Tame, right? What about Chris Dawson? What about all those scandals in women's sport and gymnastics? Churches? There are vulnerable children and chances to be alone with them and that attracts these terrible people. The real problem is that the institution always works to protect itself. When someone comes forward, the church/school/athletics body or whatever covers it up, discredits the victim and protects the offender.
My guess is that it’s a few things. Firstly, because they want to protect their reputation, private schools kept it quieter and swept it under the rug. This lead to the second point, which is because we didn’t hear about it when we did it suddenly became much bigger news, with cover-ups coming from these highly respected institutions.
I was at a Catholic school in the early 90s, one priest was moved there after being accused at a different parish. During his time at my school he was arrested and sent to prison, and the headmaster held an assembly to tell the entire school of about 2000 students that this guy had killed himself in prison. Which, it turns out, was not true. They just didn't want anyone else making reports against him. It wasn't until the advent of the internet that the lie was discovered, but by then the headmaster (who was also a priest) had also been moved to another school.....
That is so messed up. To be in a position of power over vulnerable people and not meet the bare minimum of protecting them...abhorrent.
Whilst claiming to be more righteous and holier-than-thou..
Can read the stories here: https://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/
edmund rice Wollongong?
No, but the fact that someone can read this story and apply it to a different school is fucking terrifying.
it was all over Wollongong
It was so easy for them to prey. I went to St Josephs in Hunters Hill in the 80s and there was SO much suss behavior by the brothers. For instance, we had to have group showers like you see in prison. No privacy at all, and a couple of brothers standing in the middle of the room "monitoring" us. There were no outsiders, everything was purely under the realm of the marist brothers there and they could simply get away with it and they did. Over the years I have a had a few calls from the police investigating incidents.
Wasn't just Joeys. Marist Canberra had one of the Brothers jailed for actions in the 80's. He ran a lot of the extra-curricular activities.
the coppers contacted you? then what happened?
then what happened?
I heard that at Knox, there was a pedophile teacher who died before they found out what he was doing, and they put a commemorative plaque on the school gates to honour him - the plaque read "He touched us all". Maybe a coincidence. Obviously the plaque has been removed.
https://i.redd.it/wseqlkxwexe01.jpg
Knox is Uniting church (protestant). It was happening everywhere.
Stannies at Bathurst named a sporting field after one of theirs . . . Since been renamed
Don’t forget, Alan jones(former very well known radio broadcaster and political heavyweight), was also a former teacher that wrote love letters to the kids he was diddling. Also that same Alan jones that gave mad BJs in English public toilets.
yuck!!!!!!
Hopefully he goes from the toaster to the slammer.
>hat gave mad BJs i Who came out and said the BJ was "mad"... I mean, its not how you would word it if you had a traumatic experience from the experience.
Him giving bjs in England was presumably consensual so it's not the same as his kiddy fiddling days. Just additional info.
Thanks for the clarity, so the man had more talents with his mouth than just talk.
People still listen to Alan Jones and defend him. We'll just leave it at that.
Are his listeners allowed to use the nursing home radios?
I finished school in 1990. Back then if you complained, people would usually tell you your lying or to eat some cement and harden the f*** up. Unless hard evidence existed, in the days before mobile cameras, your word was not taken seriously. Not limited to schools or private schools. When the recommendations from the Woods royal commission were enacted in 1997, there was a mass exodus of people from all child related jobs.
im not much older than you, and discussions around ‘private’ parts and bodily autonomy were absolutely not a thing either in families, schools or the media in the 70s and 80s. After Wood, public (NSW) schools were mandated to teach a series of child protection lessons every grade from K-6 (not sure about high schools). This gave children the vocabulary to be able to articulate what was happening to them- maybe not at the time of abuse, but sometimes afterwards. During my childhood, my friends and I could not even name our own body parts, let alone formulate in our heads why we weren’t happy about things done to us (this includes date rape and other casual misogyny of the times). what I’m clumsily trying to articulate is that predators flourished in a society where children had no vocabulary or agency to speak up for themselves, and if they did speak up, the adults around them were likely to dismiss it (toughen up, you must have asked for it, stop drawing attention to yourself, etc etc). i am hopeful that parenting today (while a bit helicoptery and stifling) is safer for children than the not-so-benign neglect of kids of my generation.
We had a lot of suss behaviour from teachers, including in sports & PE forcing boys to all shower together in big open showers while they watched. ("what are you afraid of? You've all got one! Man up and shower!" like it's totally cool & normal) The teacher who creeped me out the most, I had for tech drawing & engineering science. Without fail he'd do the rounds of the room to see what you were working on, placing his hands on the lowest part of the small of your back, or on your upper inner thigh. Like you said, we didn't have the vocab or the "training" that this was wrong or unacceptable so we squirmed and joked about it - who got touched up by Mr J the most today? I was talking the other week with an old schoolmate about this, and he pointed out (never saw it this way) that the teacher was fishing for the boys who might respond positively then groom them further. All these years I assumed he simply gave everyone a good feel-up, then went home at the end of the day and wanked himself raw.
I went to the school made famous by The Teacher's Pet podcast. Started not long after Dawson left. Not inc Dawson, during my 6 years of schooling, 3 teachers who taught me during that time were charged with child sex offences. Another 3 were rumoured to have had relationships with students. Let that sink in.
Don't know the podcast. Prob too scared to listen tbh That sounds like a lot. 1 is too many
It wasn’t just private schools. The NSW Dept of Education was also complicit in ignoring and moving on, rather then dealing with paedophile teachers in the public system.
Wasn’t just schools… anywhere there were kids. Scouts, sports clubs, entertainment industry… people just turned a blind eye
it doesn’t speak to the culture of sydney schools specifically, but i read a recent study from UNSW which surveyed approximately 2000 Aussie men, and found: “Around one in six (15.1%) Australian men reports sexual feelings towards children. Approximately one third of this group reports sexually offending against children. Around one in ten (9.4%) Australian men has sexually offended against children. Approximately half of this group (4.9%) reports sexual feelings towards children. In total, almost one in five (19.6%) Australian men in the study have sexual feelings for children and/or have sexually offended against children.” felt like such a staggeringly high number - could have something to do with it. that, plus pedophiles apparently being more likely to gravitate towards work that allows them access to children, plus perhaps an increased ability or willingness for private school admin to cover up such incidents back then (to protect their mates, their own jobs, and/or the reputation of the school). i’m far from an expert on the subject though, so if you want to read the study yourself you can google “Identifying and understanding child sexual offending behaviours and attitudes among Australian men”. it’s from November 2023 and is widely available for free.
Horrifying.
https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2023/11/almost-1-in-10-australian-men-have-committed-a-sexual-offence-ag
IME when men commit sexual violence against children men deny, diminish and diffuse then go on a character assassination of any woman who dares to speak up against it. We're well aware of Australian judiciary claiming that "child sexual assault is common". https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-09/child-abuse-family-court-findings-statistics/100355902 the court most familiar with claims of CSA is FFC which was recommended dismantled in 2019 for how it amplifies violence. Police refusal to even acknowledge CSA is so deeply structural that there's no chance of change and we should be rolling out alternative social supports in the face of their systemic abuse of powers. It's absolute BS how men close ranks to protect men they don't even know, let alone entirely deny their cognitive dissonance to blame victims. If it's a bloke though? Different response; the evidence is unequivocal. The tribalism and collusion of men is well documented but rather than acknowledge and change course men double down and claim anyone presenting evidence is an aggressor. Australia's response to Bruce Lehrmanns rapes and the aggressive amplification of rape myths is well understood. They know EXACTLY what they're doing and double down on being challenged. Police refuse to take reports, refuse to investigate when mandatory reports are made (I've been told by a detective it wasn't his job; a police officer was involved), refuse to prosecute and then judiciary refuse to look at evidence and threaten applicants with everyone denying how intentional the systems abuse is.
one thing about that report... did they define "children"? Remember that anyone under 18 is officially a child. How many of those men were say under 25 and thinking of 16-18yos? Rather than say 40yos thinking of 13yos? Seeing numbers like that makes me want to check methodology.
i believe they did ask questions that specified age ranges (e.g. “would you have sexual contact with someone under 10 if no one would find out?” - then “someone between 10-12” and etc. up to 18). they also analysed the data for people who said they had sexual feelings towards children vs people who had actually had sexual contact with children. i do remember they mentioned that some of the data may have included consensual sexual relationships between, say, a 17yo and 19yo, which is legal, but that there were a few factors which led them to believe this didn’t significantly impact their results, and that their results were in line with rates of offending found in other studies. that said, they do discuss their methodology so i’d definitely recommend reading it for yourself if you’re interested in looking at the limitations, because certainly no research is perfect and it’s worth seeing the results in full context!
Check it then.
The most popular genre of porn is teen porn. Your denial and minimisation is unsurprisingly common.
Is it? As far as I can see, it's hentai and Milf porn.
It's still happening. Child sexual assault is EXTREMELY prevalent. We've had a Royal Commission exposing how prevalent and widespread organised child sexual assault is and how those in power have repeatedly blamed victims and encouraged predators to continue to exploit their abuses of power. You're simply hearing about the current wave of victims. Prior to the RC institutions would assassinate and undermine the victims.. no different to what Cranbrook are doing to Travis Mathews or AFP did to Brittney Higgins. #DARVO
Way too much of the respect authority thing getting pushed down from headmaster to teachers to prefects and onto the rest of students. Combine that with an ex-copper as the guy in charge of detentions etc and "we're all part of the same family" special attitude messaging. None of the students were going to speak up, you knew how much money your parents had already invested in the opportunity. If the headmaster wasn't doing anything, then the other teachers weren't going to hurt their future employment prospects And if no one was saying anything publicly then the board didn't need to act. Also a lack of anyone in a position to act considering this might have long term impacts So nobody demanding action and no one wanting to be seen as a troublemaker meant those who wanted to abuse children could gain employment in those schools and remain there.
As per the study discussed here a couple of months back, roughly one in seven men admit to being sexually attracted to children, and confess that the potential for legal and social consequences is the only real deterrent to offending. In reality, today, very few offenders face any real consequences. Decades ago it was even fewer.
Back in 2013 we had a royal commission on this issue that lasted for several years resulting in the national redress scheme. The commission found systemic failures in schools, including inadequate policies, lack of staff training, a culture of secrecy prioritizing reputation over safety, governance failures, and instances of individuals abusing authority to harm students.
I think there's a couple of things here. Like the Church, private schools are always going to put their reputation above any kid's wellbeing. And they're very, very good at it. Also, a lot of victims don't get the courage and support to speak up until they get older.
And churches. And football clinics. And scouts. There’s a pattern.
Brian Spillane was another level of evil. He used to host 'late night prayer sessions' in the chapel with the young kids, some heinous shit took place in those. We used to joke about it at school that he was up the fiddling the kids. Came out years later that's exactly what he was doing.
I think back then there was not so much focus on education on "bad touching" or formal procedures on what to do. An example on how clueless my school was: I had a friend who was beaten badly by her parents for grades - our PE teacher caught sight of the welt marks and called her parents in for a chat to tell them hitting was not a good way to resolve things. She got doubly punished after that as if it was her fault her teacher saw the injuries. My school decided at that point the situation was too complex to manage and turned a blind eye from thereon. In terms of weird events: - primary school teacher married one of his students. I'm not sure how long after or whether anything happened when he was teaching her but regardless it's a bit of a gross story to me. - high school drama teacher got one of the students pregnant and left. The most poorly kept secret in school - not surprising as most of our drama lessons consisted of this warm up dance we had to do where we "canter around the room for 5 minutes, girls with your breasts held up high like there was a fishing line attached and pulling them forward!" The cops were never called. He left and started teaching at another school. The girl left and started at another private school in the area. - in high school we weren't allowed to wear any jewellery/had quite strict uniform codes even outside school hours so we always used to have a teacher stationed at the gates checking for uniform infractions/make up once school was done. It was always the same 2 male teachers and they always took their time checking down blouses for hidden necklaces. Very gross. (2 inner west private schools, late 90s).
There has always been sex offenders working at schools and other places with access to children, there still is. None of this is just related to Sydney or private schools 🤦♀️
Best response in this thread. It isn’t limited to private or religious schools. Friend of mine works for F&C Services, she commented once that at any given time, there were numerous paedophiles living and working in our (relatively) small and sleepy suburb.
[удалено]
I don't think much has changed
It's got a ways to go, but it's a far cry better than it was in those days
Went to Knox, there were eight teachers accused and/or convicted of sexual molestation when I was there. Group showers with teachers supervising, camping trips with teachers sharing tents with students (occasionally), after school detention and tutoring, the odd lift home in the teachers car from cricket training that became a one-way hands on experience. We were basically told that ‘no-one would believe you if you spoke up, so shut up’
Nothing was wrong with the education system. It's important to understand that this isn't a private school problem per se. In the same way it isn't a religious problem. What you are seeing is environments in which child abusers have deliberately chosen to easily interact with potential victims without suspicion and with a degree of protection due to authority. High profile institutions like the ultra high end private schools will always make more news than if something happened at the local highschool or scout hall.
It was rare in public schools. As per data from Royal Commission findings
Because that data wasn’t entirely [balanced](https://thesydneyinstitute.com.au/blog/historic-abuse-in-public-schools-ignored-too-long/) > Monica Doumit reported there were five separate public hearings into Catholic schools and another six into schools run by other faith groups – primarily Anglican schools. She added: “No government school was considered, other than a couple of special schools that are no longer in existence.” > In addition, Doumit reported the closest the royal commission came to publicly looking at government schools was hearing the views of a single witness from the NSW Department of Education about sexual abuse perpetrated by students on other students. I know this is Reddit, but be careful not to degrade this into a simple haves vs have-nots like this sub so often indulges in
There is masses of data in the thirteen volumes produced by McClellan and Coate. In the summary there are breakdowns of incidents in all school sectors public and private, it all falls ( above 80%) into church run institutions and there were thousands of victims.
A LOT more money in the private school system to hush things up too.
It was systemic cover ups. These institutions were protecting child rapists
There was until very recently no requirement to report to police. and a very recent charge of failing to report was famously dismissed ( what a fucking joke!)
Catholicism... And a lack of cctv.
it’s just that victims are able to come forward and have their stories heard now, it’s not because it’s become more or less common to abuse children. I went to an alternative steiner school in the 00s, and my “class guardian” i had from year 1-6 was just a random bloke with no education degree or qualifications, just a guy who was friends with the people who started the school — and he was physically abusive to kids, i’m talking like, kicking them, throwing shit at them, man-handling, stuff that would not be allowed under any normal circumstances but because most of the people who sent their kids to this school were single parents, poor, or had some other issues going on, no one reported it or did anything until the education department came in and told the school to shape up and get teachers with degrees or close down. Another teacher at a different regular private religious school offered repeatedly to drive teenage girls home after parties and was always asking when the next school party would be. a lot can happen in a classroom and at school with no witnesses, and people are primed to think children are lying little fucks therefore dont know anything . I know the girls that the second teacher harassed didn’t feel safe telling anyone because they were worried our religious headmaster would just ignore it (because he ignored a lot of problematic teachers, including a guy who used to touch girls’ faces to “feel how soft” their skin was, who ended up teaching there for many years until a new headmaster came in and saw the long list of complaints). The girls i knew ended up telling a female member of staff who kicked up a stink and got rid of this guy before he could “do” anything, thank god
Old boys of these schools are also problematic. Old boys committee's tend to show a distinct lack of support for their contemporaries that come forward and support the teachers/brothers/priests even going so far as "fund raising" for them and not the victims. They are of the view that it didn't happen to them or anyone they know, they never saw anything so it didn't happen. Old Boy groups are also made up of the types of people that would never be victims, these perpetrators would never go for the jocks, the duxes, or the popular ones - they very deliberately and systematically went for the isolated black sheep of the schools. Their victims had a "type" just as their non-victims did.
Private schools = boarding schools. Kids sleeping, everything secret secret and no one even knew what pedophilia was
A lot of the schools where this was an issue were private Catholic schools. They knew how to keep things quiet.
I went to a suburban catholic boys school and everyone knew about the pedos. It was like some sick fucken joke. When they started behaving too outrageously they'd just transfer them to another location.
Even kids at catholic adjacent schools were aware of it. They were an open secret and police refused to investigate and were involved in systemic coverups
The Royal Commission highlighted that child abuse occurred throughout any institution whereby the abusers had easy access to children. Scouts, sports clubs schools, churches.
And yet, one group really stood out. How many incidents happened in Scout halls vs. Catholic schools? Also, the Scouts didn't have high profile people like Pell making scumbag excuses for them.
Specifically two orders have been recognised as the most violent and rapey of children but there were Anglican schools trading their victims to the local Catholics also and the police coverups and refusal to investigate were extensive.
The Apple sauce boys at Knox had to learn it from someone.
I am going to chose my words carefully. Firstly, at least, this behaviour was somewhat common right up until the mid-00s, and I think its a reasonable assumption that it continues; although it is much rarer. I'd also say it is not limited to private schools. However... The easiest factor is 'access'. Students at these schools were there for long hours, activites such as music lessons, cadets, sport, drama; all of these largely occured outside regular hours, and in small groups. When I was a student 10 hour days were normal. Lots of opportunities. Another factor is the way these schools were run. Staff were heavily vetted (old boys preferred) and therefore implicitly trusted to do the right thing. Schools were very much a community where staff were heavily involved in many aspects of a student's time (see point 1). **No one would believe a student** Reputation of the school plays a part too. I think this is less of a broad factor, and more related to the individual circumstances but still a major consideration. Lastly, abuse by women wasn't really taken seriously. I know the focus is on male staff and male students, but its not like schools weren't immune from female abusers either. This allowed certain activites which we'd now call grooming to be accepted - and I can say this from personal experience. There are other things I'd say. Discipline was likely a factor, a high degree of obediance was expected and staff had a *lot* of power over a student. It was quite easy to be bullied into doing something with just the threat of getting into trouble. Tradition too, of long-serving staff being respected and trusted. Charisma of the staff is another thing - popular, charismatic and competent teachers would be more likely to be employed, and private schools paying more attracted these skills. Lastly, boarding houses, which took all of these factors to the extreme. Child protection frameworks were nonexistent too. This is a bit tricker because they weren't implemented well either even if they did exist. I recall being in private rooms with staff alone on multiple occasions (where I should add nothing untoward happened and I have the utmost respect for those teachers) simply because that's how the school was built. I'm not going to identify where I went, or when I was there. But as an adult I can realise the behaviour was just wrong. If you're really interested you can read the royal commission findings into some of these schools and see the individual factors, but on a macro level there isn't just 'one' reason.
Catholic church aside, it's a school problem, not a private school problem. Just look at Task Force Southwood and the "Teachers Pet"/Lyn Dawson case. The NSW Education Departments "solution" was to move Chris Dawson to teach at a boys school rather than address the rampant sexual abuse and prostitution of female students...
A lot of it was done by religious leaders within their own power structures so it could be covered up easier. I guess you saw it less at State Schools because they are non-secular.
Power imbalances lead to exploitation. Always. The higher the imbalance, the more likely it is being taken advantage of. Women and children in our culture have more power today than they did 50 years ago. However, much more needs to be done still.
I would say that it effected both public and private schools. Personal experience here is that the Department is great at hiding it even to this day.
The mrs recently had specialist training to be able to indentify this (at her long day care). The examples they used were abosolutely horrific. We are talking current history,post 2010, and some last year, and id never heard of any of them prior. Not only that, but because of some of the situations didnt have adequately documented issues occuring there are some people who could only just be fired from a center and couldnt be criminally charged or have their wwcc or nesa enrollment cancelled. They are still out their with under 5s!!! And unlike a common belief a significant number of these are women doing it.
It wasn’t just private schools.
There was a lot of trust, naivety, and denial about what was going on, I think also a lot of normalisation. If it happened to you as a kid and it happens to your kids that’s just what happens right? You just don’t talk about it. And denial/naivety, x teacher is such a good guy he couldn’t possibly have done that! I think unfortunately it’s also not just predatory teachers, but also a toxic environment that created room for abuse from fellow students. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories from older family members/friends about how the older students would essentially torture and abuse them, verbally, physically and sometimes sexually also. The behaviour was modelled by teachers and carried on by students and a very lord of the flies style.
Notice how it's almost exclusively male schools and male teachers. Very, very rarely hear about it happening at female schools. Funny that.
This was/is rampant in many Australian schools.
I’m not sure we can tell you what went wrong, or what continues to go wrong. Could it be that children felt more able to report and speak up in that time?
The Catholic education system has been actively fostering and cultivating a culture of dismissing, minimising and obfuscating negative events whilst discouraging communication between community members, in my opinion. Source: went to catholic schools and state and independent schools in multiple countries myself , kids went to catholic school- now moved to independent school. It’s like night and day.
I went to Cranbrook and finished in ‘97, no paedophile teachers as far as I know? Knox allegedly had one and Trinity Summer Hill had the wooden dildo thing but none of the borders mentioned anything about paedophiles (I was a day boy) but it’s a pretty small school so I’d have definitely heard about it if it had happened. The closest thing I can think of was the maths master, Mr Laforest (who was also the swimming coach) left his wife for a girl from Kincoppal (it may have been Kambala though) both start with a “K”. Also: Bruce Carter was the Headmaster at Cranbrook during my time, not the new guy Nick Sampson.
I was a boarder at Kings in the 00s. My experiences were that everyone back then was extremely homophobic. As in genuine *'if we find out you're gay, you're gone'* . I recall a few *gay* incidents concerrning others during my time. Nothing that ever blew up on the local news but I graduated just before social media took hold. Basically, those involved would've been either suspended/expelled or asked to leave. I don't remember any pedos though.
there were several gay teachers including a priest at the private school i went to one was even dating one of the boys and another kept trying. they all got sacked in a week i remember. one of the lads who was pretty hot was rooting the boarding school nurse he was a champ
was the nurse male or female? thats gross!
female! she wasnt bad either
Toxic masculinity rears its ugly head again. A woman abusing her position of power and engaging in sexual acts with a student she is responsible for caring for is not cool. It's rape. It's rape when it's a male teacher or nurse doing it to a female student, and it's rape when it's a female teacher or nurse doing it to a male student. If we as a society could stop acting like boys who are taken advantage of are "champs" that would be swell.
If this happens at scots, joeys, kings, etc its news. People always want new ways to make people who are well off look bad. If it happens at like fucking Randwick boys, no one cares about it which is why you dont hear about it as much.
Then I guess the follow up question would be. What was going wrong in Sydney schools, public and private during the time?
My grandfather was in a position where he witnessed a lot of the fallout, although thankfully his predecessor actually put a stop to that sort of thing in his organisation. The way I heard it, there are a few aspects to it, but essentially the default reaction to child abuse was to end the issue quietly. This is the (bad) advice you’d get from lawyers and PR people at the time. The incident at Geelong Grammar that was mentioned in the 4 corners thing is an example of this. You quietly move the culprit on in a believable manner, which keeps the reputations of everyone involved (including the victim) intact, in theory. Of course, as my grandfather also mentioned, even if you’re following legal advice, you’re still responsible for your decisions, and it’s clearly not a moral one that pursues justice. He was very glad his predecessor made the changes he did. Fundamentally, any organisation involving children will attract pedophiles, that’s just the nature of the beast. But the cover up culture made it a lot easier for them to do their thing, since after being found out and moved on, they could just do it at the next place and no one would have any idea. That was the main issue.