Brisbane school rocked by sex reports

By GREG ANSLEY

CANBERRA - Brisbane has been rocked by allegations that a leading Queensland businessman and the founder of an upmarket international college assaulted and tried to buy sex from students.

The allegations against Keith Lloyd, who set up Shaftson International College on the banks of the Brisbane River eight years ago, have also embarrassed the state Government and its efforts to make Queensland a centre for foreign students.

The State Education Department will investigate the claims, fuelled further by confirmation that police had investigated an earlier allegation of sexual assault, but had decided no action was required.

The allegations against Lloyd were aired on Channel 9's A Current Affair programme on Monday night, in which a young Japanese woman claimed to have had to fight off Lloyd in an assault in his penthouse apartment at the college.

The woman, aged about 16 at the time, said she had punched Lloyd and screamed to make him get off her. She also claimed to have been offered up to $A500 ($583) in exchange for sex.

A Current Affair broadcast a tape recording of Lloyd asking if he could put his hands in the pants of one teenager, and reported that he had tried to convince the woman not to make the affair public.

The college board said in a statement that Lloyd had stepped down as president and would leave the campus apartment.

The board said it had accepted the resignation of Lloyd from all positions he had held with the college and its associated entities.

Shaftston was the pinnacle of Lloyd's career, with its 2.4ha campus built around the 150-year-old Shaftston House - renovated at a reported cost of $A10 million - and last year extending into downtown Brisbane with a city campus in a landmark brownstone building.

Linked to the University of New England's Brisbane campus, the college boasts high-tech classrooms, a five-star restaurant, a riverfront cafe, and its own marina.

Its website carries a message from State Premier Peter Beattie, telling prospective students enrolment at Shaftston would be "a smart move to a smart state".

Lloyd worked his way from his first job as an apprentice shipbuilder through a meteoric career in life insurance - with a sideline as nightclub owner - and, in 1980, as founder of his own shipbuilding business.

Specialising in luxury boats, his yard became the second-largest in the state, employing 500 workers.

One of the yard's boats, the $A14 million Patriot, with 24-carat gold-plated sinks and a spa bath, will be one of the big drawcards at next month's international boat show at the Gold Coast's Sanctuary Cove.

Married to 1967 Sunday Sun Surf Girl Meta Ransome and with four children, Lloyd later moved into real estate, reaping $A12 million from the sale of Sandy Pt Resort and, later, $A10 million from the restored New York Hotel in Brisbane.

In 1980 he built a mansion on three adjacent properties in the Brisbane suburb of Norman Park, selling it in 1993 for $A7 million.

More recently he bought a multi-million-dollar condominium in the Gold Coast's Palazzo Versace, decorated with 18-carat gold Medusas, a 200-year-old Czechoslovakian chandelier, and a $A25,000 plasma tv.

Yesterday Premier Beattie said that he had asked Channel 9 to provide all relevant material to the police.