$1m lawsuit alleges female teacher had sex with student at Toowoomba school

A former private school student has emotionally recounted in court his sexual relationship with a female teacher.

The affair allegedly took place at a Toowoomba boarding school in the 1990s.

A former Toowoomba private school student has emotionally revealed to a court he still suffers vivid flashbacks about the day he allegedly lost his virginity to a married 26-year-old female teacher who was twice his age.

The man, who was 13 when the alleged relationship began, claimed the pair passed hundreds of love notes and met almost daily for secret rendezvous in classrooms and the teacher’s car and home during their almost two-year relationship.

The man is suing his former teacher in the Brisbane Supreme Court, claiming their alleged romantic sexual relationship, which he says began when he was in Year 8 in the 1990s, impacted his subsequent education and employment opportunities and caused long-lasting psychological harm.

Under cross-examination during the civil trial, the man detailed how the 26-year-old teacher showed an immediate interest in him when he arrived as a boarder at the elite Toowoomba school.

He said the relationship developed from a close friendship, to passing notes, organising meetings almost daily, talking on the telephone at night before it became physical with hugging and kissing by the end of Year 8.

The man gave evidence the teacher was his first kiss, and it was initiated by the teacher in her classroom where they regularly spent time together.

“I felt ecstatic, I was a 13-year-old boy being kissed by an adult,” he told the court.

“I thought I was amazing.”

He said the relationship intensified over the coming months before he eventually lost his virginity to the woman at her home while her husband was at work.

“I was in bed and she came into the room that I was staying in,” he told the court.

The man said the pair were in a serious relationship and regularly professed their love for one another.

But he said the relationship came to an end when his parents confronted the school after finding love notes from the teacher, which prompted her to resign and cut ties with him, leaving him “angry and heartbroken”.

“She just disappeared, vanished into thin air, I didn’t know what was going on,” he said.

“You go from seeing someone every day and sharing intimate times with them and then they’re gone.”

He said he phoned the woman, who met him near the school and told him she would not be returning.

“I was heartbroken,” he said.

The man detailed his life’s downward spiral after the relationship, saying he felt the school “fabricated a reason to kick me out”.

He lost interest in his studies and floated between schools, and has continued to struggle emotionally in the years since.

“I didn’t trust anyone, I didn’t want to be around anyone, I wanted to totally step back from life and not be a member of the community because I was so angry and bitter and upset,” he said.

“By the time I hit 20 or so and I realised what happened to me when I was 13, 14 was so, so wrong and I was mad.

“I thought about it all the time, I couldn’t sleep at night, I thought about many things, I thought about how could someone do this to me, how could the school do that to me, why would Mum and Dad not protect me, why a lot of things, and most of all, why me?”

The man said to this day he still has vivid memories of the “abuse” he suffered.

“The biggest flashback I have and it still happens today, not as often, but it happens is the June July holidays... that room the first time we had intercourse and she’s looking down at me, I can picture that clearly; it’s like a photograph,” he said.

The trial continues.