Child abuse royal commission: Brisbane Grammar School principal asked if alleged victim's father would go to police.

BY Louisa Rebgetz and Leonie Mellor.

The father of a former Brisbane Grammar School (BGS) student says he told the school’s principal in 1981 that his son had been sexually abused by a BGS counsellor, and that the principal’s first response had been to ask, “are you going to the police?”

During hearings in Brisbane yesterday, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard how former counsellor Kevin John Lynch abused students at the school during counselling sessions in his office.

Lynch worked at BGS in Spring Hill and at St Paul’s School in Bald Hills from the 1970s to the 1990s.

The inquiry has heard how Lynch used to hypnotise and molest boys.

He took his own life in 1997 after being charged with abusing a student at St Paul’s, having moved there after Grammar.

At today’s hearing, the father of a BGS ex-student said he had a meeting that lasted about five minutes with then school principal, Max Howell, after hearing Lynch had touched his son, a boarder, inappropriately.

The father, known as BQH, said he and his wife were told by their son that Lynch had put his hand down his trousers and, in their son’s words, “fiddled with my penis”.

BQH said upon hearing this, he said he and his wife made an appointment to see Mr Howell the next day and drove to Brisbane from a country town.

“We wanted to make sure that he was safe and that the interference would not happen again,” the father said.

“I advised [Mr Howell] that the master Lynch had been interfering with my son and I was not very happy with it.

“Mr Howell’s immediate reply to my surprise was not ‘that’s dreadful, whatever, whatever’ — his first words were, ‘are you going to go to the police?’

“Years later, my wife and I learned that the children of five other families known to us … were also abused by Lynch while students at Brisbane Grammar.”

However, Mr Howell swore in an affidavit, before he died in 2011, denying the account of BQH.

BQH was questioned today about whether there had been any other reason he would have arranged to meet with Mr Howell at that time.

BQH said he would not have driven “800 [kilometres] return journey if it wasn’t for a very specific reason”.

The court asked BQH: “Is it fair to say that the likelihood of you travelling all that way to raise the matter with Mr Howell and then forgetting somehow is just inconceivable?”

“Totally inconceivable,” BQH replied.

BGS principal ‘saw what happened’.

A former BGS student, known as BQA, told the hearing how Mr Howell had seen what was happening to him.

“Howell came into Lynch’s office during one of our sessions and he saw me with my pants off and launched into a tirade about me being a sick individual or words to that effect, and he asked me what was wrong with me,” he said.

“I left the room but Howell stayed behind and spoke to Lynch.

“I felt he was blaming me as if I was somehow tempting Lynch – I felt so confused.”

BQA also described how he was ridiculed by other teachers.

He said a PE teacher told him he knew his “dirty little secret” and people like him made him sick.

BQA said he had had meetings with the school from 1999 about the abuse and had met with Howard Stack, the school’s current chairman of the board.

“He just kept stating that his job was to protect the fabric of the school and the boys who were attending now,” he said.

“I pleaded for help and was crying.”

Former teachers at BGS are expected to testify at the hearings in Brisbane today.

Abuse continued after school years.

At yesterday’s hearing, one victim said the abuse by Lynch occurred three times a week and continued beyond his schooling years.

Another said Lynch told him the abuse would give him an “edge in life” and blamed the school for what he calls a cover-up.

One victim known as BQS said he tried to commit suicide three times since his days at BGS and has struggled with alcohol and drugs.

His mother told the commission she thought she was sending her four children to the best private schools in Brisbane.

“We got the worst anyone could possibly imagine,” she said.

“Our dear son’s development was damaged and he would never be able to achieve his God-given potential.

“Brisbane Grammar not only traumatised and damaged our son, they also robbed us.”

Last month, the BGS reiterated its apology to former students who were sexually abused by Lynch.

 If you need someone to talk to, please call the national counselling helpline 1800 Respect (1800 737 732).

This post originally appeared on ABC News.