10 South Australian teachers who have been convicted of various crimes
These 10 SA teachers harboured heinous secrets, and they found themselves in court after their deviancy and exploitation was exposed.
Local
Don't miss out on the headlines from Local. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Teachers are extremely valuable assets to our community, however there are some who have abused the trust placed in them and behind closed doors had a heinous secret.
Here are 10 South Australian teachers who have been convicted of crimes within the last decade.
LEE JAMES
Just three months after receiving a second chance, disgraced educator Lee James once again descended into child pornography – and his deviancy cost him 23 months’ jail.
In 2016, the District Court ordered the founder of the Willunga Academy of Rock after-school program serve immediate prison time for swapping child exploitation material via social media.
This music school was in no way affiliated with the Australian Academy of Rock, based in Stepney.
Judge Paul Slattery also activated James’ suspended eight-month jail term, imposed in November 2014, for possessing 41 perverted, exploitative images of children.
James, 45, pleaded guilty to one aggravated count each of possessing and producing child pornography, occurring in February and March 2015.
On those occasions, James received and sent illicit material to another man via the social media app “Kik”, including a fictional story he had written.
Judge Slattery imposed a non-parole period of 11 months.
BETTINA SCHMOOCK
An elite private school teacher who emotionally blackmailed a vulnerable student and pursued him for sex was spared immediate jail.
In 2018, Bettina Schmoock gripped prayer beads in the District Court as she was jailed for 22 months with an 11-month non-parole period.
However, Judge Gordon Barrett suspended that penalty on condition of a three-year, $1000 good behaviour bond – in part because of the role mental illness played in her offending.
Schmoock, 42, pleaded guilty to one aggravated count of making a communication with the intention of procuring a child to engage in or submit to sexual activity.
While teaching at Concordia College, she became aware of the student’s emotional vulnerability through an essay he penned, and offered to counsel him.
Eventually she took him out on a weekend to counsel him while walking on the beach – the school told her that was inappropriate and ordered her to stop.
Schmoock, however, continued contacting the boy in secret, disguising their communications and emotionally blackmailing him to keep silent by threatening to take her own life.
She was arrested after booking a cabin for the two of them to share and asking he meet with her for sex – a request he refused.
MARCO CHIRO
Convicted sex-offending school teacher Marco Chiro was re-sentenced in the wake of a law-changing High Court judgment.
In 2017, the Court of Criminal Appeal re-sentenced Chiro, ordering he serve three-and-a-half years’ jail with a two-and-a-half year non-parole period.
Justices Ann Vanstone, Trish Kelly and Michael David agreed that penalty should be backdated to May 15, 2015 – the day Chiro went into custody following his District Court trial.
In 2015, Chiro was found guilty of the brazen sexual exploitation of a teenage girl.
He repeatedly abused his victim throughout her time at Norwood Morialta High School, while he was working as its language teacher.
Prior to sentencing, Chiro’s counsel argued that jurors had not specified which acts of sexual abuse they had found proven beyond reasonable doubt.
That, they claimed, meant Chiro should be sentenced on the most favourable basis and on the least of his crimes – that of kissing the girl.
The District Court rejected that argument and jailed Chiro for 10 years, prompting a series of appeals that eventually led to a High Court challenge.
In 2017, the High Court agreed with the defence position and ordered Chiro be re-sentenced on the basis of kissing the girl.
MICHAEL ANTHONY BOCCHINO
A respected Adelaide teacher had “two faces” and was, by night, a cannabis-smoking paedophile who perpetuated the traumatic abuse of children, according to a judge.
Michael Anthony Bocchino admitted accessing, viewing and then deleting thousands of images of child pornography over the past six years.
In 2014, District Court Judge Paul Muscat jailed the former Marryatville and Adelaide high school teacher for 33 months, with a 16-month non-parole period.
Kris Handshin, for Bocchino, said police recovered 1800 video files from the temporary memory cache of his client’s computer in 2014.
Of those, investigators viewed 600 and determined at least 27 contained child exploitation material, some featuring children as young as three.
Mr Handshin said his client had led a law-abiding life until 2008 when, after a series of personal issues, he began downloading pornography while smoking cannabis.
SONIA RUTH MACKAY
A teacher jailed for the “manipulative and unforgivable” sexual exploitation of a 17-year-old student walked from prison after a successful appeal against her sentence.
Sonia Ruth Mackay, 44, of Henley Beach was jailed in December, 2018 for four years and five months with a non-parole period of two years and one month after pleading guilty to the persistent sexual exploitation of a child – a former student whose name is suppressed.
She pursued the boy by email, text and Snapchat and abused the boy in her apartment, his home and public places.
After five months behind bars, Mackay walked free from court in 2019 when the Full Court of the Court of Criminal Appeal overturned the sentence and instead imposed a new head sentence of three years with a non-parole period of 16 months.
That sentence was suspended on condition she enter into a good-behaviour bond.
PHILIP ALLEN JONES
A music teacher began viewing child pornography – including images involving toddlers younger than three years old – after hearing loss left him feeling bored and socially isolated, a court has heard.
Philip Allen Jones, 60, accessed the exploitation material after more than a decade working with children, but walked from jail with a suspended sentence.
Last year, the District Court heard Jones, of Glenelg North, began viewing pornography on a “fairly heavy basis” from the end of last year, after he was let go from his job as a music teacher because of funding issues.
He had been teaching specialty percussion lessons on a weekly basis at Immanuel College for and had earlier taught at Mercedes College for about 10 years.
Sarah Willis, for Jones, told the court his situation has been made worse by a gradual decline in hearing loss following a punctured eardrum.
Ms Willis said her client, who was also a performing musician, felt bored after he stopped socialising with friends and began to spend large amounts of time at home alone.
“As a result of that, he began to regularly consume pornography,” she said.
Jones pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated possessing child exploitation material.
For reasons including his good prior record and remorse, he was handed a wholly suspended 20-month non-parole period on a good behaviour bond.
MALCOLM WINSTON DAY
A music teacher and former ordained Minister who abused a young student in the 1980s “callously affecting” her young life was jailed for at least eight years.
Malcolm Winston Day, 79, was found guilty of maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship for offending against a 10-year-old student at his Parkside teaching premises in the mid-1980s.
In sentencing last year, District Court Judge Paul Slattery said Day would sit on the girl’s right-hand side during piano lessons making “consistent physical contact with the victim on her right side while giving her those lessons”.
He said the touching progressed to sexual offences on multiple occasions.
When the student cried, Judge Slattery said Day had “told her to shoosh” and offered her a tissue.
Judge Slattery jailed Day for 12 years with an eight-year non-parole period.
GRAHAM LEVITT
A teacher who used his mobile phone to take illicit, invasive photos of some of his female students – which he added to his child exploitation collection – was jailed for three years.
Graham Geoffrey Levitt visibly shook as the District Court in 2018 refused to suspend his minimum two-year jail term, saying his offending was too serious.
Judge Wayne Chivell said the now-fired teacher had breached the trust of his students and their parents by engaging in “an evil and pernicious crime”.
Levitt, 50, pleaded guilty to multiple counts of producing and possessing child exploitation material.
While employed as a teacher, he used his mobile phone to take upskirt photos of female students, usually while they were sleeping, as well as pictures of their feet.
Levitt added those images to 1758 files he kept on his home computer, featuring humiliating images and videos of children under the age of 12.
In sentencing, Judge Chivell said Levitt was caught when his former school discovered he had been viewing child exploitation material on its computers during work hours.
ANTHONY THEODORE VANCE
His deviant actions left little girls feeling like prisoners of their secret, but predatory music teacher Anthony Theodore Vance became a prisoner himself.
In 2015, Vance, 76, was jailed for five years, to spend at least three years behind bars, for his persistent sexual exploitation of girls as young as five.
In sentencing, District Court Judge Michael Boylan said Vance deserved “stern punishment” because he had shown no remorse and continued to insist his victims were liars.
Vance, of Christies Beach, was found guilty at trial of three counts of the persistent exploitation of a child.
Between 2004 and 2007 he touched the upper thighs and genitalia of three girls — aged between five and 10 years old — while teaching them to play the piano or electric keyboard.
During their evidence, the girls said the inappropriate touching occurred “nearly every lesson”.
GRANT GEOFFREY MARTIN
A former teacher who pretended to be a child sex slave online received a suspended sentence for his “abhorrent” and “highly offensive” behaviour.
Former Walkerville Primary School teacher Grant Geoffrey Martin was sentenced in the District Court to three years and two months imprisonment with a non-parole period of 20 months in 2013.
However, Judge Paul Slattery agreed to suspend the prison term because of Martin’s remorse and co-operation with police.
Between June 2012 and February 2013, Martin played the role of a submissive female child sex slave in an online fantasy forum.
His deviant peers knew his true age but nonetheless participated in his imaginary world of sadistic sex acts performed on a “willing child”.
He was charged with one aggravated count and one basic count of producing child pornography.
Martin pleaded not guilty and was ordered to stand trial, only to change his pleas.
Judge Slattery said Martin had showed remorse, co-operated with police and possessed good prospects for rehabilitation.
He suspended Martin’s custodial sentence and imposed a two-year $100 good behaviour bond.
‘I had a good cry’: Mum stuck in sickness cycle learns shocking truth
This Yorke Peninsula mum thought she was caught in a cycle of daycare sickness bugs. When she couldn’t get better she went to the doctor and the results were unbelievable.
Read more
Multimillion-dollar community health hub axed from Hills project
A multimillion-dollar community health hub has been scrapped from a city centre project in the Adelaide Hills.
Read more