The 72-year-old has pleaded guilty to 17 counts of indecently assaulting 11 boys at a remote school in the 1970s and 1980s.

When the allegations came to light, the Education Department investigated and he admitted nursing, kissing and cuddling the boys and taking pictures of a group of naked boys in a change room.

However, rather than sack the principal, he was moved to another school.

It is akin to the ongoing scandal in the Catholic Church about paedophile priests who for years were shipped around from location to location to avoid confronting their crimes.

It is understood police investigated at the time but did not press charges as the complainants wanted it handled privately.

While that puts police in a difficult situation, it raises questions about whether more could have been done to bring the offender to justice when the allegations first came to light.

The man was finally charged when details of his offending surfaced at last year's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

It is everyone's responsibility to confront child abuse.

The long-term consequences for victims is often devastating, as highlighted by victim impact statements in this case and numerous others.

Courts constantly hear of lives destroyed by sexual abuse, by people who cannot form long-lasting relationships, suffer anxiety or depression and self-medicate with drugs or alcohol.

Victims need the support of society to know that they can come forward, seek justice and perhaps draw some level of closure to an ordeal that was never their fault.

And people who abuse their positions of trust and the trust of children need to know they will be caught and punished.