Anthony Pearsall: Clemton Park Primary School teacher avoids jail

A teacher led primary school-aged children to a dark basement and kissed them. But he’ll not be punished with jail, telling the court he was just ‘immature’.

A Sydney teacher who kissed three primary school-aged students in a dark campus basement in the 1970s will not spend a single night in custody.

Anthony Charles Pearsall, of Woolooware, blamed immaturity, not sexual attraction, for the indecent assaults of three female students aged between 10 and 12 at Clemton Park Primary School.

He was sentenced on Wednesday to a good behaviour bond as some of his victims watched on.

Pearsall, aged 69, was married and in his early 20s when he took three students down to a basement and sports storage room, and kissed them with an open mouth.

With one victim, he also touched her chest area, before moving his hands down towards her groin and touching on top of her clothes, the court heard, all after leading her by the hand away from other students.

Anthony Charles Pearsall. Picture: Daniel McGookin

She had been assigned as a sports monitor by Pearsall, the school’s sportsmaster, with special duties relating to entering the sports storage room and handing out equipment.

With another victim, Pearsall had asked for help to find a key to the sports room, before leading her down to the basement and kissing her with an open mouth.

She recalled not knowing what to do because the teacher was much bigger than her and made a run for it after saying she heard someone outside.

The court heard that in the basement, these students also recalled Pearsall encouraging girls and boys to kiss, and play spin the bottle or strip poker, although he hasn’t been charged for these allegations.

In a sentence hearing in June, some victims told of their ruined potential and the “shame and guilt” they felt over the incidents.

In October 1975, Pearsall was charged in relation to an incident where he stood a student on a chair in the sports storage room, kissed her on the lips, and then asked if she wanted to feel him, the court heard.

She declined, after which he asked if he could feel her.

He told her to promise she wouldn’t tell anyone.

Image of Anthony Pearsall’s arrest on July 31, 2019. Picture: NSW Police/Channel 7

In 1977, he was sentenced to a four year good behaviour bond and fined for inciting the female to perform an act of indecency, the court heard.

Pearsall was suspended from teaching after the incident, and never returned to teaching, working instead in his father-in-law’s glass business.

After some 45 years with no criminal convictions, and what the court heard was a loving family life, he was arrested in 2019 over the current offences.

Ahead of his trial he pleaded guilty to the four counts of indecent assault of a minor.

The court heard Pearsall denied being sexually attracted to the victims and instead blamed immaturity and an attempt to form better relationships with students.

Judge Ian McClintock said Pearsall was a schoolteacher who had abused his position of trust repeatedly and said he took the students to a place that could be secret.

He said there was a negligible risk he would reoffend again seeing as he had no criminal convictions in the time before he faced the court again in 2019.

Pearsall had described his actions as “wrong”, the court heard, and expressed remorse and shame to friends.

Judge McClintock sentenced him to four concurrent Community Corrections Orders spanning three years, in which he must be of good behaviour and not commit any further offences.