Teacher’s bid to recoup legal costs fails

A primary school teacher’s bid to recoup her legal costs after clearing her name against false accusations from her former eight and nine-year-old students has failed.

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A primary school teacher’s bid to recoup her legal costs after clearing her name against false accusations from her former eight and nine-year-old students has failed.

The 58-year-old teacher, who cannot be named due to legal reasons, is out-of-pocket after Magistrate Daniel Covington ordered she pay her own legal costs at Liverpool Local Court this morning.

The woman was last month cleared of six counts of assault against three boys and a girl who she taught in a school in southwest Sydney.

The school cannot be named for legal reasons.

The teacher’s bid to recoup her legal costs was unsuccessful.

She had been accused of punching, spitting, pinching, scratching and pushing students when she was their teacher in a composite Year 3/4 class in April and May last year.

The woman had pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The teacher and her lawyer pursued the police for court costs on the basis the police investigation was conducted “in an unreasonable and improper manner”.

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Mr Covington, when delivering his verdict at Liverpool Local Court last month, said one of the accusations was a “fabrication” by a boy who had “clear dislike” for her.

Four students gave evidence at the hearing, where one of the boys described his former teacher like the headmistress Miss Trunchbull from the movie Matilda.

The teacher recalled the class as being “chaotic” when she gave evidence at the hearing and recounted how a boy, who would later tell police she spat on him, told her “we don’t like people that aren’t Arabic”.

The boy then told her she looked like Donald Trump.

Mr Covington said the boy had a “clear dislike for the accused” but made clear the students evidence wasn’t unreliable purely because they were children, highlighting how their accounts of what happened changed or “grew in detail” over time.

In some instances, he said, their evidence was “implausible”.

The teacher had told the court that she was hardly ever alone with the students and there was always a classroom aid or another teacher with her.

Mr Covington also dished out criticism to police for failing to interview a single adult witness who may have been in the classroom at the time of the alleged assaults.

An Education Department spokesman said an internal investigation remained ongoing in respect to the future employment of the teacher.

“This person has not been teaching at schools since the issue was first raised, with her future employment status pending the outcome of an ongoing investigation,” he said.