Victims confront alleged offender
Former Grammar students testify in closed court
FORMER Geelong Grammar students faced the man accused of sexually assaulting them at the prestigious Corio school when he fronted court yesterday.
David Brian Mackey, 84, was the school’s live-in doctor from 1964-1993, but it is understood 17 students have alleged he assaulted them.
Some of those students testified to a closed court at Dr Mackey’s committal hearing in Geelong Magistrates’ Court yesterday.
Court documents filed for that hearing show Dr Mackey faces 19 counts of indecent as- sault, the earliest charges arising in 1968, and other matters throughout the 1970s and into the late-1980s.
Male and female students have made allegations against the man. Most of them were aged under 16 at the time of the alleged offences.
The court was told evidence from the complainants needed to be tendered in a closed court because it was alleged they were victims of sexual assault.
While Dr Mackey was inside the Geelong Court House yesterday, advocates for victims of institutional sexual abuse tied blue and yellow ribbons to a barrier at the front of the building, signalling their support for the complainants.
The committal hearing is expected to take six days.
When it ends early next month, magistrate Peter Mellas will need to decide if there is enough evidence against Dr Mackey to send him to a County Court trial on the charges.
Dr Mackey spent almost half his life at Geelong Grammar, studying there from 1945 and becoming head boy in 1952.
He worked at the school as resident doctor from 1964-1993, living on the Corio campus with his wife and children.
He was charged with the offences in October last year by members of the SANO taskforce, which investigates allegations of historic and current sexual abuse against children, particularly alleged offences committed in religious and non-government organisations that were came to light following state and national royal commissions.
The hearing in Geelong Magistrates’ Court continues today.