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The acting principal of St Kevin's College in Toorak — which in the past week has lost its principal and several staff over its response to the grooming of a student and other allegations — has praised the former student who made the initial complaint and another boy who testified in the resulting prosecution.
Key points:
- John Crowley admitted that "some serious mistakes were made"
- Mr Crowley declined to provide any information about why two more staff members left the school last week
- The school is revising all its child safety policies
In his first public address since his appointment to the role on Thursday, John Crowley said he had held up former student Paris Street and his friend Ned O'Brien as role models for the college's students.
"When I met with the senior boys last week," Mr Crowley told media today, "I made it clear to them that it was really important for us to acknowledge the bravery and the courage of those young men, Paris and Ned, who stood up and used their voice to be able to say what had happened to them."
St Kevin's former principal Stephen Russell resigned from the position on Wednesday after Four Corners revealed he wrote a character reference in 2015 for former coach Peter Kehoe who had been convicted for grooming Mr Street.
The dean of sport at the college, Luke Travers, who also gave character evidence for Kehoe, was subsequently stood down while the deputy principal, Janet Canny, stepped aside while another matter was investigated. The school recently announced two other staff had left the college for undisclosed reasons.
The Victorian Government has also announced an investigation into whether the college was compliant with child safety standards.
'Serious mistakes made'
During the media conference today, Mr Crowley said that "some serious mistakes were made" and he had the support of the school's staff.
"I want to be absolutely clear to the community of St Kevin's that I have the interest of the boys absolutely at the forefront of everything that I do," he said.
"We need to accept that the boys, Paris and Ned, who spoke up at the time, did not have a voice and we need to be mindful of the importance in our healing journey that we need to be able to give people a voice, we need to listen to that voice deeply and we need to be people who are prepared to walk a journey with people who are wounded, without exception."
Mr Crowley several times highlighted how his previous experience would frame his time at St Kevin's.
He was previously headmaster of St Patrick's College in Ballarat and gained publicity in 2019 when he removed George Pell's name from a wing of classrooms at the school after Pell's convictions for child sex offences became public.
The school was also the first in Victoria to sign onto a child protection curriculum that explicitly teaches children how to recognise child abuse.
Mr Crowley repeatedly refused to provide any details about why two more St Kevin's staff had left the school.
"It's not appropriate that I speak about the specifics there," he said.
He said the school was revising all its child safety policies and the school needed to have a "really strong mindset around child-safe culture".
"I intend to employ a director of safeguarding fairly shortly [and] the school has appointed a child safe officer," he said.
"So there are some steps that we've implemented to make sure that we're constantly reflecting on our processes to ensure that the boys are safe and continue to be safe in the future."
Mr Crowley talked up the staff and students at the college and said about 200 senior boys had lined up to look him in the eye and shake his hand after the assembly last week.
"I think that it's a wonderful place to be," he said.
Topics: education, independent-schools, schools, melbourne-3000, toorak-3142, vic
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