School fostered misogyny, excused behaviour as ‘boys will be boys’, court told

A lawyer representing an all-boys Catholic school on Brisbane’s northside says claims of a history of misogyny are irrelevant to a teacher’s allegations she was surrounded and pelted with food by hundreds of boys while working there three years ago.

The lawyer spoke in Queensland’s Supreme Court on Friday, where Victoria Sparrow was seeking documents to aid a claim for damages that she filed in July last year.

Sparrow alleges the assault took place on October 27, 2023, while she was employed as a drama teacher at Marist College Ashgrove.

On Monday, her barrister Gerard Forde filed an application against the school, arguing it was withholding documents linked to an event that had given Sparrow a serious psychiatric injury.

Those documents, Forde said, included school-commissioned and personal notes from the head of college and senior staff detailing the events, school safety procedures, and evidence the school had fostered a “culture of misogyny” in its student body.

“[Sparrow] has said there had been a deterioration of the behaviour of the children, and it had occurred over a long period of time,” Forde said.

He said Sparrow was supervising students at lunchtime on a rainy day in 2023, with the boys restricted to an outdoor covered area before they turned on her.

On Friday, Forde said Marist’s “history of misbehavior towards women” had led to the incident.

He said Sparrow’s psychological injury was partly caused by the incident itself, but also the school’s treatment of her afterwards.

Rick Green, the barrister representing the school, said context around the attack, “particularly those relating to a culture of misogyny”, were irrelevant.

“All that Ms Sparrow has to establish is that there was a breach of duty that caused her a psychological injury,” he said.

Forde said on Friday he had received a dozen written statements from other female staff members detailing similar experiences of harassment from students, as well as complaints they had made to their employer.

One was a statement from Marist teacher Madonna Spillane, alleging that head of college Michael Newman had said “boys will be boys” after Sparrow’s alleged attack.

Forde said documents provided by the school did not refer to the comment, which indicated the school’s account had pieces missing.

“These are examples of mistreatment of women leading up to what occurred, and so the school would have been aware of it,” Forde said.

Green said the only documents that existed and were not released to Sparrow’s legal team were within student records, and that handing them over would violate privacy laws.

A spokeswoman for Marist College Ashgrove told this masthead the school was “firmly committed to fostering a culture of respect, inclusion and accountability”.

“The college reached out to all parents at the time this incident occurred three years ago, and the matter was dealt with under our student behaviour management policy,” the spokeswoman said.

It said it would not make further comment while the matter was before the courts.

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