Private school teacher who offered to be a 16-year-old student’s ‘sugar daddy’ loses unfair dismissal case

A teacher at an Adelaide private school offered to be a 16-year-old student’s “sugar daddy”, give her wine and pay her an allowance — then took legal action claiming unfair dismissal after he was sacked.

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A teacher at an Adelaide private school offered to be a 16-year-old student’s “sugar daddy”, give her wine and pay her an allowance — then took legal action claiming unfair dismissal after he was sacked.

The 50-year-old teacher took his former employer, St Columba College in Andrews Farm, to the Fair Work Commission contending that his dismissal had been harsh and unjust.

However, the commission sent him packing, labelling his suggestive conversation with the young student “lurid” and “appalling”.

The teacher began working at the school in 2011. He taught the student briefly in Year 9 but had not been her main teacher for two years.

Commission deputy president Peter Anderson was told that the student had worked as a part-time retail assistant at a northern suburbs supermarket.

The teacher made regular trips to the supermarket, which Mr Anderson noted was 12km from his house and not his closest outlet, on Sundays when the student was working.

He would often wait in her line at the checkout with a few items even if the other checkout lines were moving faster.

St Columba College at Andrews Farm.

During school in March 2018, the teacher asked the student when she would be working next.

The student responded that she would be working on Sunday morning but later found out her shift had been changed to the afternoon.

When she started her altered shift the teacher arrived and waited in line to be served by her.

He asked where she had been that morning and what she was planning that evening.

The student replied that she would be spending time with her boyfriend.

Only days later, at a school sports day, the teacher called the student over to help raking the sand during a long jump competition.

In between bouts of raking, the student said the teacher criticised her boyfriend as “too short” and “too rich”.

The student said the teacher told her: “I can treat you better. I can be your sugar daddy. I can pay you small allowances. We can drink red wine. You can give me neck massages.”

When the student tried to change the subject to his family, he replied: “They’re not important right now, you are.”

The student told her mother and, later the same day, a teacher.

The principal of St Columba College, Leanne Carr, began an investigation into the complaint and placed the teacher on paid leave.

He was fired on May 14 and offered six weeks’ salary as a severance package “in recognition of (his) service to the college”.

However, the teacher launched legal action appealing the dismissal to the Fair Work Commission.

Mr Anderson was scathing of the teacher’s actions as he dismissed the case.

“The suggestion that (the teacher) could be the student’s sugar daddy is not just wholly inappropriate and unprofessional but veers towards the lurid,” Mr Anderson said.

“That this suggestion was accompanied or followed by a further suggestion that an allowance could be paid is appalling.

“Each of these statements in conversation was a serious breach of duty.”

The case comes three years after the Fair Work Commission ruled a St Columba teacher who taped Reception students to chairs was unfairly dismissed, although she did not get her job back.

At the time the mother of one of the children, who said her daughter was traumatised, insisted the teacher should never be allowed to work in a school again.