A FORMER staff member at Geelong Grammar School, the exclusive Australian private school attended by the Prince of Wales, has been accused of sexually abusing its students during the 1980s and 1990s.
Phillipe Trutmann, 45, was charged with 65 offences at Geelong Magistrates’ Court, in Victoria.
He is charged with abusing 40 boys while he was a boarding-house assistant at the school’s Highton campus between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s.
Mr Trutmann faces 22 counts of acting indecently with a child under 16, 41 charges of gross indecency with a person under 16, one of possessing child pornography and one of sexual penetration of a child.
The school, whose former pupils also include Kerry Packer, the media tycoon, has previously confirmed that it was conducting its own investigation into the allegations.
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“We are aware that there is an ongoing police investigation into certain allegations of sexual abuse referring to events a number of years ago at our Highton campus, which closed in 1997,” Stephen Meek, the principal, said in a statement.
Magistrate Maxwell Beck extended Mr Trutmann’s bail and ordered him to reappear on August 12 for a committal hearing.
The Prince returned to Geelong for the school’s 150th anniversary celebrations this year during his official tour of Australia. As a 17-year-old he spent two terms at Geelong’s Timbertop outpost and two weeks at the main school.