John Beckett – Scouts NSW – A Call for Witnesses
Koffels Solicitors & Barristers are looking for witnesses who could provide any information on John Beckett (“Beckett”) and his involvement in Scouts NSW.
Beckett was a long-standing and respected teacher at The Scots College, Bellevue Hill, in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, from 1974 to 1999.
We understand that he was also a Scouts Master involved in the 2nd Randwick Scout Group, New South Wales, in the 1980s.
In 2015, Beckett pleaded guilty to three charges of indecent assault in the District Court of Adelaide in relation to events at a Scots College school trip to South Australia in 1989. Beckett was sentenced to a period of imprisonment of three years and eight months. However, the sentence was suspended, and Beckett instead was placed on a good behaviour bond for two years and ordered to pay $1,000.
We encourage anyone with any information about John Beckett’s involvement in Scouts or his perpetrating to contact us. We would like to hear from potential victims, fellow Scout Masters, other members of the Scouting Association, fellow teachers from Scots College or other students of Scots College. We are acting in matters involving both The Scots College and the 2nd Randwick Scout Group.
All information provided will be confidential unless we have your express permission otherwise.
If you or someone you know would like to talk to one of our historical sexual abuse specialists, for free and in confidence, about your legal options, please feel free to complete the form below with the best way and the best time to contact you, or you can call us on 02 9283 5599.
4 replies to John Beckett – Scouts NSW – A Call for Witnesses
Guys in my year at Scots came back from the Central Australia trip talking about similar behaviour, and he was always known as “Johnny Bum-Check”.
The lightness of his sentence for just charges show how paedophiles are protected.
What a creepo, yes everyone called him Johnny Beckett bums check it, because he made boys line up to make sure they were wearing loose fitting underwear to bed. He once pulled me into his office and locked the door to ask me about my underwear. Reprehensible old cretan.
On that same trip, 1983 or ’84 he told one boy who wasn’t paired up that he would be staying in his tent. I still have that moment in my head and have often thought about it. We were only in year 7 or 8. And when we got to the crossing into Arnhem Land (East Alligator River, I think) he insisted we all strip naked for a wash in the river. No crocs back then, all shot out, but there was another predator. I argued directly with him and told him I wouldn’t be stripping for no one. My brothers had already done the trip years earlier and we were wise to him. Don’t know what happened in ’89 but he was running that school trip for years.
The stories of John Beckett’s were legend when I started at Scots in 1985. Older boys warned us against him. As the other comments here state he was known as ‘Johnny Bum-check’ all based on things that had happened on the Central Australia trip well before what he has been officially convicted of. He also attended cadet camps in my time there and would creep around at night. One thing that others may remember was he was the master in charge of the Cadets Q-Store which is where all the boys would have to go once a year and be fitted for uniforms etc. I remember feeling extremely uncomfortable being made to strip off in front of him and he would put his fingers down waist bands of boys pants to ‘check’ the fit. Feels like including the scouts he put himself in as many convenient places as he could. If you read this John, you know what you did. We know what you did because you did it to us. This is your legacy John Beckett. This is how you will be remembered forever.