Robert Lumsden: Alleged murder victim accused of sexually harassing and intimidating a teacher

The man allegedly killed by a Gold Coast councillor in the family home was previously accused of sexually harassing and intimidating a teacher in a failed work compensation claim.

The man allegedly killed by a Gold Coast councillor in the family home was previously accused of sexually harassing and intimidating a teacher in a failed work compensation claim.

Robert Lumsden, found dead on Wednesday in an Arundel home, was accused by a teacher of “engaging in inappropriate behaviour, which she characterised as harassment, intimidation, bullying and sexual harassment” back in 2013, court documents show.

The incidents were alleged to have occurred at Theodore State School in the Wide Bay region north of the Sunshine Coast and are detailed in a workers compensation claim appeal heard by the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission in 2015. The claim is unrelated to the murder investigation.

Robert Lumsden, picture behind Ryan Bayldon Lumsden, who was allegedly killed by his stepson. Picture: Supplied.

At the time he was “an active member” of the school’s Parents and Citizens’ Association (P & C)” and elected as the school’s Queensland Council of Parents and Citizens Associations (QCPCA) representative in 2013.

A female teacher claimed Mr Lumsden invaded her privacy by sitting at her desk and entering her personal space and had “placed his hands down his shorts and scratched himself”.

“After complaint by the appellant, Mr Lumsden proceeded to lift his shirt and expose his stomach and chest and used his other hand to go down further inside his shorts and scratch his anatomy; and Mr Lumsden sat with his legs spread and told the appellant that, ‘I have a big split in my pants’,” the claim appeal reads.

“She said that on 12 March 2013, two days before a parent/teacher interview at approximately 8am, before class, Mr Lumsden walked into her classroom and asked her whether she liked the classroom. He put his hands inside his shorts and scratched himself, whereupon she said, ‘Don’t! I find it offensive’. He then lifted his shirt, exposed his stomach and chest, put his other hand deeper into his shorts and ‘had a good fiddle’.”

Mr Lumsden denied the claim at the time.

“Mr Lumsden said he went to the classroom in the afternoon of the day they had shaken hands, to confirm that the earlier altercation between him and (the teacher) had in fact been settled,” the documents show.

“He denied sitting with his legs astride, saying that he sat on a small student chair, that to the best of his knowledge he had not blocked (the woman’s) egress and that if he had mentioned the split in his pants it was only to explain why he was sitting awkwardly”

Commission Deputy President Kaufman dismissed the teacher’s appeal, stating he was not “satisfied the events had occurred in the manner in which the teacher had portrayed them”. He ordered her to pay the regulator’s costs.

Mr Lumsden’s stepson, first-term Gold Coast councillor Ryan Bayldon-Lumsden has been charged with his murder - his lawyer Jason Murakami said he intends to plead not guilty.