Ex-principal’s vow after school abuse scandal

WARNING: Distressing content.

A former principal has pledged to continue his support of victim-survivors in his latest venture after he was allegedly sacked following a dispute with the Anglican Church.

The alleged dispute, which the church has denied, was over compensation payments to victims of historic sexual abuse at St Paul’s school in Brisbane.

Parents last year protested the sacking of Dr Paul Browning, who had garnered respect for his actions during the 2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

St Paul’s was a key case study in the royal commission, as former St Paul’s counsellor Kevin Lynch abused more than 130 students at Brisbane Grammar School and St Paul’s in the 1970s-1990s.

Lynch was charged with sex offences after a student at St Paul’s secretly recorded his confession, and Lynch then took his own life.

Allegations of improper sexualised conduct were also made against Gregory Knight while he was a music teacher at St Paul’s between 1981-84.

However, he was given the option to resign and went on to teach in the Northern Territory where allegations of child sexual abuse were raised again in 1993.

Knight was convicted of several counts of child sexual abuse in the NT, and pleaded guilty in March 2023 to historic sex crimes in Adelaide. He was placed on a two year good behaviour bond.

Knight was also permitted to resign from an Adelaide school in the late 70s, at which point he went on to teach at Brisbane Boys College in 1980.

He was dismissed from the college after allegations he was “behaving improperly towards students”, which he did not deny, according to the 2017 royal commission.

A spokesperson for the Anglican Church said the handling of compensation for sexual abuse survivors was “never part of contract discussions” for Dr Browning, and expressed hope the discourse wouldn’t dissuade victims from coming forward.

Abuse “stole my potential”

A former St Paul’s student, who was abused by Lynch and wishes to remain anonymous, told NewsWire the abuse led him to consider stepping in front of a train when he was a student, while the effects of the abuse have lingered throughout his life.

He said he threw himself into work to cope, but doing so “took up every moment of (his) time”.

“The moment I stopped, all the imagery came back,” he said.

“I’d wake up in the morning and cry because I’d woken up.

“I would fill my day with as many things as I possibly could so I was exhausted when I went to sleep … because if I stopped, it was just too hard.”

He said he’d told the principal of St Paul’s about the abuse at the time, but alleges the principal told him he was lying.

He then kept the abuse to himself for 30 years, which he said was “harrowing”.

Another former St Paul’s student, who wishes to remain anonymous, said he was abused by Knight, and that the alleged abuse “stole (his) potential”.

“I was actually a scholarship student at St. Paul’s … I guess you could say it was probably the best thing that happened to me and the worst all in one fell swoop,” he said.

“I didn’t understand any of this until much later in life, because my life was pretty unravelled … it probably stole my potential.”

He said he went from a scholarship student to a university drop out to “somebody with a drinking problem”, adding he also went to prison.

He said the highest price he paid for the alleged abuse was destroying his family, “all tied to a past not of (his) making”.

Former principal “instrumental” in getting alleged survivor back on track

It took both men years to speak about the abuse they experienced, however, the alleged victim of Knight said Dr Browning played an “instrumental” role in him getting back on track.

“It took a long time to come to grips with (the abuse), and dare I say professional help to finally start to unpack it,” he said.

“Paul Browning was very instrumental in helping me – recover maybe isn’t the right word – but try to get back on track,” he said.

Dr Browning, who won School Principal of the Year in the 2018 Australian Education Awards, made an apology on behalf of St Paul’s during proceedings for the 2017 royal commission, and set up a memorial garden for victims at the school in 2017.

Dr Browning has now launched a new tech start-up, Vivedus, and has committed to donating 10 per cent of proceeds to supporting victims of abuse.

Vivedus is a learning activation model teachers can use to plan learning activities that promote creative intelligence in order to encourage students to think creatively and “like an innovator” – skills Dr Browning says are essential.

A portion of proceeds from the start-up will be donated to the Blue Knot Foundation, an organisation that supports victims of complex trauma, including adults who were sexually abused as a child.

“As an educator … if a child doesn’t feel safe, valued and loved, cared for, or if they’re suffering from trauma, then they’re not going to learn,” he said.

“Child sexual abuse is the scourge of society.”

The alleged victim of Knight emphasised the importance of support services like the Blue Knot Foundation, as growing up in his generation, the general attitude was to just “suck it up, eat concrete, and get the f*** on with it”.

“You need a place where people can feel safe and secure, and (get) professional help,” he said, noting child abuse is “never going to stop”.

“It’s all well and good to bury yourself in a bottle of bottle of Bundy, but a bottle of Bundy is not going to help.”

Reports of historical child sexual abuse rampant in Queensland

Shine Lawyers are working on more than 800 abuse cases in Queensland alone, the majority of which are historical child sexual abuse cases.

Shine Lawyers Queensland general manager of personal injury, Craig Oliver, said about a quarter of those cases relate to abuse that took place in schools.

Mr Oliver said he was shocked at the level of abuse, and noted “not everybody is coming forward”.

“I’m still shocked that some of the inquiries we get, they’re not historical – it’s not in the 1970s and 80s … one recently was in 2019.

“Despite the work that’s being done, this is still a problem and still an issue.”

Mr Oliver said he would “love to not have an abuse department”, but in the meantime he’s prepared to “hold people to account”.