OPINION
As I wrote recently, more and more grim evidence is emerging that child sexual abuse in public schools likely dwarfs even what went on in the churches. Worse, the cover ups and enabling by those in charge were every bit as bad. And still are: a recent Victorian government inquiry limited its scope to just one (admittedly, astonishingly egregious) school, Beaumaris Primary, which was a particularly nasty hotbed of rockspiders.
But there’s every reason to believe Beaumaris was just the tip of a very sleazy iceberg.
The Victorian Education Department sent unqualified teachers into classrooms in the 1960s and then failed to sack them following reports they were sexually abusing their students, according to recently discovered documents.
Just as happened in the churches, senior bureaucrats knew but kept the whole thing secret. Whistleblowers were silenced or ignored.
In an unpublished memoir obtained by ABC Investigations, former Macleod High School principal Athol Jones claimed that the Victorian Education Department appointed “morally reprehensible” trainee teachers to the school in the late 1960s and that a senior department executive failed to terminate the employment of one when Jones passed on complaints that the teacher was sexually abusing female students.
The long-buried scandal is now the subject of legal action against the Victorian government.
In September, a Supreme Court writ was served by a survivor alleging horrific sexual abuse by former Macleod High School teacher Peter Gerrard Jackman.
This story is a particular shocker.
She is suing for the pain and suffering she has endured after Jackman allegedly raped and abused her repeatedly in 1969 – abuse the woman says only stopped after she fell pregnant to Jackman.
The woman confirmed to ABC Investigations that Jackman arranged an illegal abortion for her in an outer suburb of Sydney, initially suggesting she should pay for it herself.
Afterwards, she says Jackman dumped her 250 metres from her house and made her walk home alone.
Receiving no after-surgery care, she says the procedure left her infertile.
The court documents, according to ABC journalists, overlap closely with the principal’s memoir, which, if it’s accurate, shows that a prolific paedophile was allowed to prey on young girls without hindrance.
According to the principal’s extraordinary account, Jackman abused at least 10 girls at the school in a 12-month period.
Jones, who died in 2004, was the principal of Macleod High School between 1969 and 1975, and wrote the memoir in 1980 […] According to Jones’s account, Peter Jackman was one of six unqualified teachers assigned to MacLeod High School in the late 1960s on account of teacher shortages then plaguing the Victorian Education Department school system.
In the memoir, Jones described his early impressions of Jackman being “a likeable young fellow” who “threw himself into every extra-school curriculum he could” and was particularly engaged in politics and debating.
But there were grim signs.
But after warning Jackman about his after-school fraternisation with Macleod High girls, Jones became concerned when a parent at the school arranged a meeting with Jones and “made some serious charges against the teacher”.
The claims included that Jackman was sexually abusing multiple girls at the school.
Mind-bogglingly, some of the parents displayed a callously indifferent attitude.
According to Jones, one mother said she had not reported her daughter’s abuse because she “thought men normally behaved like that”, to which Jones said he replied, “Nonsense, these are third form girls and they ought to be protected.”
When Jones confronted Jackman, he denied any impropriety, despite the sheer volume of complaints. If the principal thought he would have the backing of Education Department superiors, or teacher’s unions, he had another think coming.
Far more troubling to Jones was the reaction of Albert ‘Bert’ Schruhm, then the second-most senior director of the Victorian Education Department.
“He [Schruhm] felt it was essentially a matter for him because of the delicate legal implications,” Jones wrote.
“I interpreted this to mean that he [Jackman] would only be transferred to another school. I argued that I could persuade the teacher to resign. We argued for some time on this and finally the Director agreed reluctantly to my proposition.
“Next day, the teacher and I discussed the matter. He told me that the VSTA [Victorian Secondary Teachers Association] told him that his defence was a simple one of conspiracy against him by the girls who bore hostility to him.”
Jones persisted and gave Jackman an ultimatum: resign, or he’d hand the statements over to police. Jackman duly resigned – and, unkown to Jones, promptly took up teaching again in Queensland.
ABC Investigations put a series of questions to the Queensland Department of Education regarding Peter Jackman’s teaching career in Queensland, but it declined to answer them.
“The Department of Education has a responsibility to maintain confidentiality of employee information and therefore is unable to comment on this matter,” said a Queensland Department of Education spokesperson.
ABC Australia
The cover ups are still going on.