Revealed: NSW teachers whose offending shocked school communities
NSW school communities have been rocked after current and former teachers landed in court. Hear the behaviour that left students, parents and schools devastated.
Mid-North Coast
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School communities across NSW have been rocked by shocking actions that landed teachers in court over the past few years.
From a high school teacher who smoked a bong with students to a former casual teacher who sent sexually explicit messages to an investigator posing as a 14-year-old girl, take a look back at some of the most shocking cases.
High schoolteacher smoked a bong with students
A teacher who admitted to selling drugs to high school students avoided prison after she told a court she was suffering from severe mental health issues when she was filmed smoking cannabis with them.
Lauren Russell walked free from Sutherland Local Court in July 2022 after pleading guilty to supplying illegal drugs to students from Lucas Heights Community School in Sydney’s south in late 2021.
The physics teacher, who was also working as the school’s Year 12 adviser at the time, escaped conviction after a five-month ordeal in court.
The 42-year-old made headlines across the country in February when footage showing her using a homemade Gatorade bottle bong went viral.
In the footage, the American-born mother of three was seen sitting on a milk crate and looking behind her before a student leans in to light the bong.
Police claimed the teacher had contacted students outside of school hours and supplied them with the drugs between 3pm and 5pm on December 15, 2021.
Russell was arrested at her Beverly Hills home on February 4 and charged with supplying a prohibited drug.
The video went viral days later, but no charges were laid in relation to the footage.
Defence lawyer Dev Bhutani appeared on Russell’s behalf on March 9 and entered a plea of not guilty. The court was told she would be seeking to have the charge dismissed under the mental health act.
A month later she entered a plea of guilty to the charge, with her lawyer maintaining that they still intended to have the charge thrown out on a mental health basis.
Documents tendered to the court revealed Russell messaged a student and asked if they wanted to “catch up and have a smoke” on the afternoon of December 15.
She picked up two minors in her car and drove them to an area of bushland in Menai.
The court was told Russell had “sourced” the cannabis from a 17-year-old former student.
According to court documents, the teacher supplied the two students with cannabis to smoke from their homemade bong.
The trio took turns smoking cannabis through the Gatorade-bottle bong until they were finished, the police facts stated.
During Russell’s mental health hearing, Mr Bhutani told the court there was a casual link between his client’s bipolar disorder and her “out of character” behaviour, which was made worse by excessive drinking and cannabis use.
He said the lithium tablets she was receiving to treat her mental illness put her at risk of a manic episode because the dosage was so low.
Ultimately there was no conviction recorded and Russell walked free from court on the condition she abstain from illicit drug use and continue to receive treatment for mental illness.
The court also imposed an order prohibiting her from having any contact with the students involved in her offending.
Teacher sent sexually-explicit content online
A former Ambarvale High School casual teacher who sent sexually explicit messages to an investigator posing as a 14-year-old girl was sentenced in Campbelltown District Court in April, 2022.
David John Macpherson pleaded guilty to six charges committed between May and September 2020.
The 62-year-old admitted to using a carriage service to groom a person under 16 years for sex, two counts of using a carriage service to solicit child abuse material, using a carriage service to transmit/publish/promote child abuse, using a carriage service to send indecent material to person under 16 and possess child abuse material with intent to breach.
The Woodbine resident was working as a casual teacher at Ambarvale High after retiring as the school’s deputy principal, when Strike Force Trawler investigators arrested him at work in September 2020.
Judge Andrew Colefax sentenced Macpherson to five years in jail, backdated to begin from his arrest on September 8, 2020.
In handing down his sentence, Judge Colefax noted that Macpherson did not have a criminal record.
“You had a distinguished career in the Department of Education ending up as deputy principal of a high school. That is a very successful career,” he said.
“You were married with children and yet for reasons that have never been explained to me … at that stage of your life in the period between May and September you engaged in the offending.”
Judge Colefax described what Macpherson engaged in as “highly sexualised communications” that were “disgraceful”.
In September 2020, a police officer from the Child Exploitation Internet Unit assumed the online identity of “AOI”, a 14-year-old girl.
Macpherson sent messages to the AOI asking if she sexually touched herself.
“I just don’t want u to think I am a stupid or silly 14 year old,” AOI wrote.
“I absolutely won’t … I‘d love to teach you if you’re interested,” Macpherson replied.
Macpherson will serve a non-parole period of two years and six months before being eligible for parole from March 8, 2023.
PE teacher drank 400ml of scotch on an empty stomach
A Quakers Hill High School PE teacher was lashed in court for being caught behind the wheel after drinking 400ml of scotch.
Anthony Somerset, 60, was sentenced in Blacktown Local Court in March 2022 for driving with a high range PCA after blowing more than four times above the legal blood alcohol limit.
The agreed facts tendered to the court stated police were alerted to a possible drunk driver in a red Mazda around 7pm on January 11.
When police officers approached the parked vehicle they found Somerset sitting inside, attempting to turn it on.
The Kings Langley man was breath tested by police and returned a positive reading. He was taken to Riverstone Police Station where a secondary test returned a positive reading of .231.
The PE teacher told police he had not eaten all day but had drunk about 400ml of Johnnie Walker Red Label before hopping behind the wheel.
Court documents stated that following his arrest, Somerset appeared remorseful and acknowledged his wrongdoing.
Magistrate Brian van Zuylen lashed Somerset’s actions stating he was lucky he didn’t kill himself or others that night.
“You were over four times the legal limit,” Mr van Zuylen said.
“What makes you go drink that amount of scotch and get behind the wheel and drive?
“You are incredibly lucky you didn’t kill or seriously injure yourself or anyone else. You are a PE teacher at Quakers Hill High School and a personal trainer, you surely should know better.”
Somerset was fined $1900 and disqualified from driving for six months, backdated to January 11. He will also have to have a mandatory alcohol interlock device fitted to his vehicle for 24 months following his suspension.
Drunk teacher planned to sleep in her car
A Sydney schoolteacher got off scot-free for driving a short distance while drunk after planning to sleep in her car at Caringbah train station.
Olivia Paige Mir, 29, was charged with mid-range drink driving and appeared in Sutherland Local Court in September, 2022.
Agreed facts tendered to court stated that Mir, who lives in Caringbah South, drove her white Holden Barina in a circular direction in the carpark adjacent to Hay Ave about 2am on July 12 this year.
Police stopped her for a mobile random breath test with officers noting Mir was “seriously affected by intoxicating liquor”. They observed a smell emanating from her, bloodshot eyes, slurred speech and she was unsteady.
Court documents stated that Mir blew a positive result before she was arrested and taken to Sutherland Police Station. Mir underwent a second breath analysis and returned a reading of 0.082.
She said she had consumed six or seven drinks in the 11 hours prior.
The court heard Mir moved her car to a safer location because it was on a slope, when she was stopped by police.
Mir’s lawyer said his client was “tormented” about receiving a conviction for the charge because it would likely impact her future work goals.
Magistrate Hugh Donnelly noted she only drove a short journey and the reading was just above the mid-range before imposing a conditional release order with no conviction for 12 months.
Solicited child abuse material
A teacher in one of Sydney’s most exclusive private schools pleaded guilty to sending indecent material to a minor and soliciting child abuse material.
Padstow Heights man Alexander Simpson once taught at Trinity Grammar School in Sydney’s inner west.
But in April 2020, using the alias ‘Sydney man’, he started speaking with a 13-year-old girl called Anna on Chatiw and Skype.
Little did he know Anna was actually an undercover cop.
On August 27 2020, police arrested Simpson at Trinity Grammar and “paraded” him in handcuffs to the police car in front of students and parents.
Judge Leonie Flannery SC told the court Simpson’s offences were “very serious” because they “exploit the vulnerability of youth and inappropriately sexualise young people”.
Simpson was convicted and sentenced to a two-year prison sentence, to be served in the community. He now works as a tradie.
Women carried secrets for more than four decades
For more than four decades, three women carried the secrets of this man’s actions.
Anthony Charles Pearsall, a former teacher at Clemton Park School, confessed to sexually touching three students, aged between 10 and 12, in the mid-1970s.
Pearsall pleaded guilty to four counts of committing an act of indecency on a minor when he was a married teacher in his early 20s.
A court heard how Pearsall took three students down to a basement and sports storage room and kissed them.
He also led one victim away from the other students and touched her chest area, before moving his hands down towards her groin on top of her clothes.
In June 2021, some of Pearsall’s victims told the court about the “shame and guilt” they felt over his actions.
On September 9, 2021, Judge Ian McClintock convicted Pearsall and sentenced him to four concurrent Community Corrections Orders spanning three years.
Sexually assaulted teen student
A 24-year-old teacher was sent behind bars after she pleaded guilty to three charges of aggravated sexual assault with a 14-year-old boy.
Monica Young, of Greenacre, was 23 and soon to be married when she snagged her first full time job in 2020 at a Sydney school.
Just three months later, Young began grooming her victim. She shared messages and calls with him on Snapchat before physically abusing him.
The pair met multiple times — in and outside of school.
The beginning of the end came when the victim’s mum read his phone messages. She saw a selfie Young took from her bed which said: “I’m waiting for you”.
Judge Kate Traill told the court Young “manipulated” and “preyed upon” the victim.
“She must have known it was criminally and morally wrong … she exploited his vulnerability and manipulated him,” Judge Traill said.
Young was sentenced to four years and nine months behind bars. She will be eligible for parole in October 2023.
Head of swimming at an elite Sydney private school
The head of swimming at an elite Sydney private school was busted with horrific images of child abuse — so graphic the details could not be printed.
Former Knox Grammar teacher Nick Warby likened the rush of looking at child abuse material to taking a hit of ice.
According to court documents read out at his sentencing, Warby’s sickening description of his first experience looking at child abuse material was “I lit up, it was like the first time I drank or did ice”.
Warby’s trove of child abuse material was only uncovered by chance in August 2019 when he left his phone at the pool to change clothes for a Knox Grammar promotional video.
A colleague who scrolled through the phone, attempting to figure out who owned it, stumbled across the graphic images and reported them to police.
Child abuse detectives would go on to find 3400 images and videos on five devices Warby owned.
Warby pleaded guilty to possessing child abuse material and was jailed for two years and four months in September 2020.
Expressed love for student in a series of letters and cards
High schoolteacher David Leishman, of Blaxland, was jailed over the sexual touching of a student.
Leishman pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated sexual touching and one count of assault with an act of indecency.
According to court documents, the former teacher developed a close relationship with his victim at school and texted her several times. He also expressed his love for her in a series of letters and cards.
Shortly after his arrest, another girl came forward about an incident where he kissed her on the lips in a school hall.
In March 2021, Leishman was sentenced to one year behind bars. He initially appealed the length of his sentence but withdrew this appeal in April 2021.
Management consultant turned teacher had sex with student
A management consultant turned inner west teacher encouraged a student to perform oral sex on him in an empty classroom.
In 2020, Leppington local Stuart Van Dyken was found guilty of having sex with a child under his special care and inciting a child over 16 to perform an act of indecency.
A court heard Van Dyken was talking, alone in his office, with the victim when the conversation shifted — he asked if she would give him oral sex “right now” and told her to meet him a nearby classroom.
When the victim tried to escape from that classroom, Van Dyken persisted and encouraged her.
Afterwards he said, “my life’s in your hands. I have children, I won’t be able to see them. My job’s in your hands,” a court heard.
At Downing Centre District Court, Judge Penelope Hock said Van Dyken coerced the victim.
“He was a person … (the victim was) entitled to look for guidance and protection and he grossly abused the trust placed in him as a schoolteacher,” Judge Hock said.
The court heard Van Dyken also possessed a folder of clandestine photos he had hidden in a locked folder on his phone.
These photos, accessible only by a passcode, held intimate images of women taken without their knowledge, including photos of the student victim.
In August 2020, Van Dyken was sentenced to three years behind bars, with a non-parole period of 18 months.
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