A former student has alleged he was sexually abused at Cranbrook, a prestigious boys’ school in Australia’s wealthiest suburb Bellevue Hill.
In what should have been the opportunity of a lifetime, Travis Mathews (now 23) had been a ward of the state in Western Australia since he was born. At 13 years old, he transferred to Cranbrook where the state paid his tuition as his older sister worked at a nearby naval base.
Soon after his arrival, though, his life took a turn for the worse when an older student began sexually assaulting him.
Travis, who appeared on Four Corners as part of an investigation into the school, stated that the abuser was aggressive and violent, forcing him to perform oral sex and threatening Travis he would make his life hell if he told anyone.
AJB Stevens’ Adrian Barakat represents Travis.
“This was an opportunity for Travis to come to Sydney, to go to a private school where the opportunities from there were infinite,” Barakat said.
“Instead, it became his nightmare.”
Travis was too scared to report the abuse, which continued for several months, and he has never spoken publicly about it until now.
“I think my perpetrator realised that if I was to ever come out, he would be looked [at] in a bad light,” he said.
“So he told me to make sexual advances on him in his room and then recorded me … and used that as evidence to tell the school that I had been the one purporting all of this — at the age of 13, asking to have sex with someone older than me and asking for these things that I didn’t want.”
The school discovered the tape and Travis told a school counsellor about the abuse. The police investigated, and the headmaster Nicholas Sampson was included in multiple emails about the allegations. But Sampson never responded and never met with Travis.
Barakat says, “When you have a series of serious sexual abuses being reported, for the principal to not even weigh in, not a skerrick of evidence that there was an email or a concern expressed by him, nor any guidance given by him to his staff in relation to how this should be managed, nothing … that is substandard.”
The school sent a media release describing the assault as “misconduct” between students, and Travis’ housemaster emailed the school staff labelling Travis a “serial pest”.
Travis, under the impression the courts and school would never believe it, didn’t proceed with charges. He now serves with the Australian Defence Force and commenced legal proceedings in the NSW Supreme Court in February.
Prior to this, Barakat had also discovered Cranbrook had previously conducted an investigation into the same older student allegedly touching other boys inappropriately. Remarkably, there was a threat by the school to seek a suppression and non-publication order regarding Travis’ story.
Fortunately, the story was aired, and court action is proceeding. Hopefully, justice will be served, and the school’s response to allegations will be more efficient in future, particularly as Cranbrook is preparing to go co-educational from 2026.
