Attorney-General consulting victim groups, police on how to close legal loophole after teacher avoided jail after sex with student

NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman is consulting victims groups, the police and the judi­ciary about how to close a legal loophole which allowed a schoolteacher to have sex with a 17-year-old student and then avoid a criminal charge.

NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman is speaking with victims groups, the police and the judi­ciary about how to close the legal loophole which allowed a teacher avoid jail time after having sex with a student. Picture: AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts) NO ARCHIVING

NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman is consulting victims groups, the police and the judi­ciary about how to close a legal loophole which allowed a schoolteacher to have sex with a 17-year-old student and then avoid a criminal charge.

Mr Speakman said his ­department had been working to close the loophole after the Court of Criminal Appeal upheld a District Court judge’s decision to dismiss a charge against the 49-year-old sports teacher because he was not teaching the Year 12 student at the time they had sex.

The Port Stephens teacher, known only as PJ, was charged with three counts of having sex with a person between 17 and 18 who is under his “special care”, but he got off the charges due to a technicality in the law.

The teacher avoided jail time as he wasn’t teaching the Year 12 student at the time.

Mr Speakman said his ­department was now consulting victim’s groups, legal stakeholders, police, prosecutors and the judiciary to change the law, saying: “No child should ever be taken advantage of in a student/teacher environment, irrespective of whether that teacher is currently responsible for the ­student.”

Under NSW law, although the age of consent is 16, it is an offence to have sex with someone who is between 17 and 18 if you are in some form of supervisory or guardian role. The Crown case was that the teacher initiated the relationship telling the student he was sexually attracted to her and had sex with the girl three times on September and October 2015.

OTHER NEWS: PROTESTERS CLASH AHEAD OF YIANNOPOULOS’ EVENT

In the District Court his defence team argued the teacher did not commit an offence ­because he was not the girl’s teacher at the time and therefore not under his “special care.” The court heard the girl had was taught by the man between 2011 and 2013 but had no contact with him in 2014 and was not his student when they began to talk regularly in the school grounds in 2015.

District Court Judge Tanya Bright agreed with the defence and stayed the prosecution.