A Jewish man who worked as a security guard at an Orthodox Jewish boys’ school in Melbourne has been committed to stand trial on charges of sexually abusing children.

David Samuel Cyprys, 44, will face 40 charges of child molestation — including multiple counts of rape — against 12 students at Yeshivah College in the 1980s, magistrate Luisa Bazzani ordered this week.

Mr Cyprys, 44, who runs a company called Shomer Security, pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

In her ruling, Ms Bazzani reprimanded Yeshivah’s former principal, Rabbi Avrohom Glick, who first claimed he had never heard any allegations about sexual abuse and then changed his testimony to admit he had heard claims more recently. Ms Bazzani described his testimony as “unfathomable”.

Some of the witness statements during the two-week hearing fuelled longstanding claims that Yeshivah’s director, Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner, the chief rabbi of Chabad in Melbourne until his death in 2008, knew of the allegations and covered them up. Mr Cyprys was released on bail; he will return to court next month.