When the dark history of Victoria’s education department was laid bare this week in public hearings, Glen Fearnett sat metres away from bureaucrats as they divulged the state’s failings to protect children.
Fearnett is a victim-survivor of abuse and has been central in pushing for a formal apology for the abuse he and other victim-survivors suffered at Beaumaris primary school, in Melbourne’s south-east.
Victorian education head apologises for ‘catastrophic failures’ in protecting public school students from abuse Read more
Despite his own experience, he says he was still shocked to hear the revelations this week at an inquiry investigating historical abuse allegations at 24 Victorian government schools from the 1960s to 1990s.
Most disturbing was the admission that the department of education’s longstanding practice was to move teachers accused of sexual abuse of children to smaller government schools. This occurred until the 1990s, and often without their new principals knowing about the allegations unless they heard rumours or speculation.
“I thought it was quite damning before and it’s gone to a different level,” Fearnett says.
“It’s unbelievably sad that nobody cared. That they put the reputation of teachers, schools, departments, ahead of little kids. It’s almost a loss of words – how could you do that?”
Fearnett, who has worked as a teacher for more than 30 years, says the department’s inaction and determination to protect the reputation of schools above child welfare has shaken his belief in the education system.
“More challenging than anything is that betrayal,” he says.
“I’ve worked with some really great people and I think all of us get tarnished with this. It’s just horrible. Maybe time will heal that, but it’s incredibly sad.”
Four paedophile teachers identified by inquiry
The inquiry – announced by the Victorian government in June – is investigating allegations of historical child sexual abuse at Beaumaris during the 1960s and 1970s, and at 23 other government schools where the alleged perpetrators also worked until 1999.
The inquiry has identified four perpetrators including David Ernest Keith MacGregor, convicted of multiple charges related to child sexual abuse, and Grahame Harold Steele, who was never convicted and died in 2013. The other two perpetrators cannot be named for legal reasons. The inquiry has identified 44 child abuse complaints linked to the four men although the true number could be higher.
The inquiry this week shone a light on MacGregor who was convicted of child abuse in the 1980s but continued to be employed by the department until his retirement in 1992.
The department was first alerted to accusations against MacGregor, including that he was being investigated by police, via a letter from concerned parents in February 1985. At the time he was teaching at Kunyung primary school in Mount Eliza. He had previously worked at Beaumaris for nine years until 1976.
Despite the…
2023-11-17 18:00:05
Source from www.theguardian.com