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Childrens carry banners at an anti-paedophile protest outside South Jakarta court during the verdict of Australian Peter William Smith February 26, 2007. The court on Monday jailed Smith for 10 years for sexually abusing street children. REUTERS/Supri

Knox Grammar erected a memorial for Bruce Barrett after his death with a sign reading “He Touched Us All.” The sign was later removed from the memorial of the deceased art teacher accused of sexually abusing a number of his students.

The child sex abuse royal commission heard on Tuesday that Sydney’s Knox Grammar had erected a memorial of one of the paedophile teachers with the sign. Students were instructed to attend the funeral. However, the school removed the “touch” sign as the child sex abuse allegations against the teacher gave a totally different interpretation of the sign.

Knox headmaster Ian Paterson, aka the “Snake,” is accused of not paying attention to sex abuse allegations. When a teacher called Damien Vance was accused of such offence, the headmaster did not involve police for investigation. Vance is one of the five teachers who were convicted after police complaints were made by former students in 2009.

A man wearing a balaclava went into dormitory of sleeping students to assault one of the boarders. Other boys chased him as he escaped with his head under a doona. However, the headmaster did not call police on that occasion either. Teachers were asked not to talk about the incident as school leaders told them that it was an Asian intruder from outside the school.

Paterson was the head of the institution during the most part of the period when child sex abuse cases allegedly took place. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard a number of evidence of such misconduct that took place from 1970 to 2003.

A former student called a paedophile teacher like “a kid in a candy store.” The students said that the teacher had not faced any sanction from the school management even after the reports of them sexually assaulting students. Former student Coryn Tambling said that Craig Treloar, one of the convicted teachers, had groomed him. The teacher allegedly asked him for oral sex. While Tambling refused the teacher, Treloar told him that he was Paterson’s special group of boys before he had become the headmaster.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@IBTimes.com.au