Detectives have seized CCTV of Scots College students from the evening they allegedly sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in an eastern suburbs alley way, as parents express shock and sound the alarm on what they say is a culture of toxic masculinity at the school.

Investigators on Thursday seized several items of interest from the boys’ homes, including electronic devices, which are being forensically examined for links to the alleged attack and crime scene. The college, Sydney’s most expensive private school, has refused to say whether it will suspend the trio.

The girl and the boys, who cannot legally be identified, were known to each other and are believed to have arranged to meet on the night of the alleged assault.

The boys, a 13-year-old and two 14-year-olds, have been charged with aggravated sexual assault in the company of others, and aggravated sexual touching of another person over the alleged attack on July 22. All three boys were granted conditional police bail on Thursday and are due to face Surry Hills Children’s Court on August 25.

Detectives also seized two replica firearms, a “Glock-style” BB gun, three laser pointers and a number plate, which is believed to have been stolen, during searches of the boys’ homes on Thursday.

The school has refused to answer repeated questions about the students’ enrolment status, when it became aware of the alleged incident, or what measures were being taken to address wellbeing and safety at its Bellevue Hill campus, where parents say a culture dismissive of women is rife.

“There’s a culture in the school of inequality of genders that is part of the boys’ everyday lives,” one Scots College mother, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the identity of her family, told the Herald.

“There’s little representation of women at a senior management level. It’s just tokenistic. You feel that as a mother, you feel that as a woman stepping onto campus.”

Conversations of consent at the school, she said, were limited and have little impact on students.

“There’s this ambiguity about what consent means … That sends a really bad message to the boys,” she said.

Females make up 39 per cent of staff. There is one woman on the Scots College Council and 10 men.

Another parent, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: “By and large, the school community is shocked as you would expect.”

He said the alleged crime was an “abhorrent thing” but had occurred outside of school hours and off school premises.

He believed the school had done a good job when it came to teaching consent in the years after Chanel Contos launched her campaign for mandatory sexual consent education.

The former Kambala student’s petition for earlier sex education in schools received hundreds of testimonies alleging that boys at several Sydney private schools had been perpetrators of sexual assault.

Noting some had called for the students to be expelled or suspended, the father said the boys should be given the presumption of innocence.

The Scots Student Discipline Framework categorises student misbehaviour ascending in severity, from level zero to level three. Level three is behaviour that poses a “significant risk to the safety, dignity or rights of others”.

Across the country, instances of child sexual abuse perpetrated by adults had declined, the 2024 Australian Child Maltreatment Study found, but rates of peer to peer abuse among adolescents had increased. Teenagers have now overtaken adults as the now most likely perpetrators of sexual violence towards other young people.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data from 2024 found victims of sexual assault increased by 10 per cent from the previous year, to 40,087 victims nationally. Separate Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data shows 92.3 per cent of women did not report an assault by a male perpetrator to police in 2021-22. Sexual assault victims were most commonly aged between 10 and 17 at the time of offending.

Public schools have also had to grapple with handling the fallout of sexual assault allegations.

An ombudsman report into the handling of an alleged sexual assault at an unnamed public high school between a male and female school student found the NSW public system had no consistent or clear way to deal with criminal matters involving students, and provided little guidance on what to do when the victims of a crime and its perpetrator attended the same school.

The Department of Education subsequently provided updated advice on how to best manage the safety, wellbeing and educational risks for the students involved in sexual assaults.

Options available include managing students within a school. “If this is not practicable, a suspension may be required to allow the risk management plan to be put in place,” the advice says.

Anna Coutts-Trotter, a victim-survivor and founder of The Survivor Hub, said she would like to see a “strong stance” from Scots College.

“The person who used violence against me went to a prestigious school in Sydney,” she said. “It definitely speaks to a wider problem.”

She said Scots was “evading responsibility” by noting the alleged assault was outside school hours, and called for “a general statement of support for survivors and a condemnation of acts of violence”.

Angelique Wan, co-founder and CEO of Consent Labs, which runs workshops in high schools across the country aimed at preventing sexual violence, said parents also play a role in consent education, both in terms of explicit conversation, and modelled behaviour.

“It’s often said that young people are influenced by social media and what they see online, and to some extent that’s true,” she said. “But parents and carers are still a massive influence and source of information for young people.”

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491.