Alexander Simpson: Trinity teacher breaks silence over grooming

The Sydney private school teacher who tried to groom a 13-year-old girl while working at an elite institution has spoken for the first time, calling his explicit chatroom habit “an addiction”.

A disgraced Sydney private school teacher who groomed a 13-year-old girl, telling her he was a “horny old man”, has broken his silence over what he says was an addiction to 18-plus chatrooms online.

Former Trinity Grammar teacher Alexander David Maxwell Simpson gave evidence in the Downing Centre District Court on Thursday a year after he told a minor online that her mother had “a sexy daughter” in a series of lewd chats.

Simpson wept with his wife and father-law watching on as he admitted he groomed the child on a chatroom at night while by day way he was working with kids at the prestigious inner west school.

“(Chatrooms) help me to escape,” he said.

Alexander David Simpson was an english teacher at Trinity Grammar School. Picture: Adam Yip

“It gave me a way to escape the stresses and the thing that I was feeling at the time, it helped me feel adequate or normal at times, I know now I had a real problem.”

Simpson was chatting with the young girl while he had a chronically ill wife at home, the court was told.

The 40-year-old, according to court documents, spent a week messaging what he thought was an underage girl with disturbing suggestions about her wanting “male attention” and being paid for sex.

The only problem was the 13-year-old was actually an undercover detective from the sex crimes unit prowling the internet for predators.

Simpson had been a teacher for 10 years before his arrest last August.

“OMG I hope you don’t teach at my school LOL,” the ‘girl’ messaged Simpson in one exchange.

“LOL would you flirt with me if I did?” he replied.

The conversations, according to court documents, started off with Simpson talking about homework but eventually got more explicit when he talked about the girl being paid for sex.

His world came crashing down last August when Simpson was arrested on the school’s campus and “paraded” in handcuffs in front of students and parents.

When he got into custody, he said, guards mocked him and called him “the celebrity” over the eight days he spent on remand before being granted bail.

Simpson being hauled into a police van. Picture: Adam Yip

He has pleaded guilty to using the internet to send indecent material to a person under 16 and soliciting child abuse material.

Simpson, under cross examination, said he was “extremely sorry” for his explicit conversations with the ‘minor’.

“If there was a chance (the child) was actually who they presented as that was the very person in every other aspect of my life I was trying to protect, teach and help,” he said.

Simpson told the court he would “feel awful” if he was sentenced to jail and left his seriously ill wife and children to fend for themselves.

Judge Leonie Flannery will hand down her judgment at a later date.