Teacher who had sex with student, 17, still working for Education Department
A SPORTS teacher who admitted to having a sexual relationship with a Year 12 student but got off criminal charges on a legal technicality still works for the NSW Department of Education.
NSW
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A SPORTS teacher who admitted to having a sexual relationship with a Year 12 student but got off criminal charges on a legal technicality still works for the NSW Department of Education.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal the 49-year-old former Port Stephens teacher known only as PJ has been banned from working in schools but has been moved into an administrative role for the Education Department based in a Mid NSW coast office.
The Department of Education spokesman confirmed the man’s employment status.
Daily Telegraph Editorial: Teacher exploits legal loophole to have sex with student
“The person is currently employed by the Department of Education. The person was removed from the school on the day the Department was informed of the matter. Now that these criminal proceedings have concluded, the Department can begin its own investigation,” he said.
The revelation comes as the teacher’s former partner broke her silence on 2GB’s Ray Hadley program yesterday saying the girl told her that the man initiated the sexual relationship by giving her a love letter confessing he’d had romantic feelings for her since she was in Year 8.
It is understood the man denied writing the letter to the girl.
The woman, who can’t be identified for legal reasons, told Hadley that she was living with the man but was away in Sydney when he invited the teenager over to their house and had sex with her in September 2015.
“We have been living together for approximately five months. We moved in together on the 28th of August and the relationship I believe started the week after we moved in together and it happened in our home … not in my bedroom but in other areas of the home,” the woman said.
She said she had spoken to the girl after the court case was finalised and the teenager had told her the sports teacher had handed her a letter in the last week of school.
“He said he’d been in love with her since she was in Year Eight. I have spoken to her, she’s a lovely young girl,” the woman said.
“She discarded the letter and then and he waited in the car park and approached her to ask her what she thought.”
Court documents state the girl gave the man her phone number and they later met at his home where they had sex. The following month he met her in a park near her house and they had sex on a mattress in his van.
The man’s lawyers successfully sought a permanent stay on the prosecution arguing that the man was no guilty of having sex with a 17-year-old in his “special care” because he was not teaching her that year.
That ruling by District Court Judge Tanya Bright was upheld by the Court of Criminal Appeal last week.