Investigators look at Cranbrook after it failed to raise red flag over teacher

External investigators of besieged Cranbrook School are now examining the school’s response to claims of improper behaviour towards children by another teacher in the late 1990s.

An external investigation is examining claims of improper behaviour towards children by a teacher at the Cranbrook School in the 1990s.

External investigators of the besieged Cranbrook School are now examining the school’s response to claims of improper behaviour towards children by another teacher in the late 1990s, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

The elite private boy’s school has confirmed the failure to pass on warnings about the teacher have been identified as a “matter of serious concern” by external investigators appointed to look into its handling of child safety.

Parents first raised concerns about the behaviour of teacher Reinier James Jessurun and the school is understood to have found evidence of inappropriate behaviour towards pupils.

The matter was not reported and the teacher was removed from the school a term before the end of his contract in 1998. He moved to a school overseas.

Reinier Jessurun leaving court in 2019.

Jessurun returned to Australia and applied for a job at Newington College which he got after Cranbrook did not give any warnings about his past.

In 2018 Jessurun was working at Newington and found to have more than 7,500 images of child abuse material when Australian Federal Police officers raided his home.

“Why did I do it? I hate to answer this,” Jessurun, 58, said to officers at the time. “I suppose a sense of loneliness but … there’s no excuse. What I’ve done is a hundred per cent wrong.”

He was jailed for a minimum of nine months behind bars by the NSW District Court in 2019.

The fact that Cranbrook failed to warn Newington about Jessurun’s past and had simply removed him when allegations were made at the school will now form part of a wider investigation.

Cranbrook has announced an external review of its handling of serious child safety concerns to be led by Amanda Bell, the chair of Queenwood School for Girls in Mosman, and an external law firm.

Cranbrook School. Aquatic Centre Street level.

The review was announced after it was revealed that head master Nicholas Samspson had not informed the school board about investigations into a senior school teacher sending explicit emails to a female student he taught at a Catholic girls’ school.

There is no suggestion that Mr Sampson was aware of the concerns raised about Jessururn in 1998.

Mr Sampson resigned from his $1 million a year position after the board said that meant there had been an “irrevocable breakdown of trust between the headmaster and the school council”. Mr Sampson has now commenced legal action.

Cranbrook’s external review was initially intended to cover the last 14 years but will now cover Jessurun’s time at the school after it was identified “as a matter of serious concern” by the school.

A Cranbrook spokesman said: “Mr Jessurun was employed at Cranbrook from 1996 until he left the school in 1998.

“The school’s external review of child safety matters has already identified this as a matter of serious concern. We will continue to recover records and make inquiries and will ensure the matter is appropriately addressed.”

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Originally published as Investigators look at Cranbrook after it failed to raise red flag over teacher