Katoomba High School student charged with 8 counts of sexual assault

A student has been charged with multiple serious offences after a police strike force investigated alleged sexual assaults linked to a NSW high school.

A NSW police strike force is investigating alleged sexual assaults linked to Katoomba High School. Picture: iStock

A NSW police strike force set up to investigate alleged sexual assaults linked to Katoomba High School has charged one student with multiple serious offences.

The teen faced the Children’s Court on eight charges of sexual assault without consent, one count of intentionally choking and another of common assault, to which he pleaded not guilty.

The magistrate will deliver the findings in May.

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal Strike Force Woolalla was established in 2020 in ­response to a complaint about alleged sexual violence and threatening behaviour of students. Its investigation is ongoing.

Angry parents have posted flyers around town urging “current or past” pupils of Katoomba High School to report “a rape, sexual assault or sexual harassment” to the strike force.

The flyer (left) calling to make Katoomba High School ‘a rape-free school’.

“The school has been the subject of an ongoing 15-month rape-related investigation by the Department of Education,” the flyers read.

“Parents whose daughters have attended Katoomba High should check on their welfare regarding this issue.”

The teenage boy at the centre of the court case was charged in January last year over the alleged rape of one of his female peers at a party in the Blue Mountains in 2019. The matter was first reported to the school and then police.

The NSW Department of Education launched a Professional and Ethical Standards investigation into Katoomba High School on December 9, 2020.

That investigation is also still ongoing.

The investigation began after the girl’s parents complained that the school had failed to have the boy spoken to by police, for allegedly harassing the girl, before he allegedly raped their daughter.

A department official said in a letter to the parents: “A PES investigation has commenced into this matter and will be examining whether any staff member at Katoomba High School have engaged in misconduct.”

The length of the investigation led to the parents sending a complaint to the Department of Education and the NSW Ombudsman.

“Given the very serious incidents being investigated by the Department of Education, they should have completed this ­investigation in a very short ­period of time,” the parent said in the complaint.

“Their failure to do so has put the safety of ­female pupils at risk at Katoomba High School.”

Another parent with daughters at the school said she had not been made aware by the NSW Education Department or Katoomba High that an ­internal investigation was under way, and labelled the “secrecy” as “appalling”.

“When I heard this I was deeply shocked and concerned,” she said. “The school should have a duty of care to tell us about this, not the ­rumour mill.”

A NSW Department of Education spokesman said it was “not appropriate” to comment on the allegations.

It is not the first time the school has been engulfed in a scandal, with a teacher jailed after having sex with a female student in 2019.

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