Teacher Shane Osmond found guilty of serious misconduct

A TEACHER who flooded his 16-year-old student with sexual Facebook messages and gave him a “soulmate” necklace he had been saving for “the one” has been suspended from teaching, but will not face criminal charges.

A TEACHER who flooded his 16-year-old student with sexual Facebook messages and gave him a “soulmate” necklace he had been saving for “the one” has been suspended from teaching for five years.

Shane Osmond was found guilty of serious misconduct by a panel sitting at the Victorian Institute of Teaching.

The 55-year-old faced the maximum penalty imposed by the VIT after his behaviour towards the student escalated “to the point of obsession”, including sending 1650 Facebook messages — many sexual in nature — telling how much he cared for him and even naming his penis.

TEACHER SENDS SEXUAL MESSAGES TO STUDENT

But the teacher won’t face criminal charges because there is no offence for grooming a child over the age of 16.

Despite this, a government spokeswoman said the state had “already taken steps to strengthen Victoria’s sexual offence laws”.

Victims of Crime Commissioner and former police officer Greg Davies said the VIT penalty seemed a “paltry slap on the wrist” given the work highlighting the impact on youth through the Child Sexual Abuse Royal Commission.

“It seems a truly small penalty for ‘grooming’ a child under his care,” he said.

Victims of Crime Commissioner and former police officer Greg Davies said the penalty was a slap on the wrist.

A panel decision published today found Osmond asked to be the boy’s mentor via a program at a high school in Melbourne’s northeast, and used the position to take him out of class on average once a day throughout 2016.

He took him for driving lessons where, on one occasion, Osmond took his student to his home, showed him his bedroom, his gym, his cats and introduced him to his mother.

The teacher sent the 16-year-old about 1650 Facebook messages in just over a year, sometimes up to 20 a day.

Among them was an image of Santa Claus carrying a sack, replaced with a pair of testicles, an X-ray image of a penis, links to chronic masturbation posts and a Christmas cartoon featuring elves building adult sex toys.

The teacher told the boy he named his penis “Champ” and called his student’s penis “Theo”, confiding in him he had a tattoo of Sylvester the Cat near his genitalia.

Over Christmas holidays, Osmond sent him messages saying “I miss you”, telling his student he was “a very important person in my life” and calling him “Muscles”.

When the boy did not respond, his teacher called him on three occasions to ask why.

After his 17th birthday — where Osmond took him to Melbourne, showered him with gifts and attempted to gain him entry to Crown Casino — the teacher asked the boy to meet him again outside of school hours, to which he replied, “things were getting a bit weird”.

But Osmond met the boy in his work carpark after he finished a shift at a restaurant.

He gifted him a “soulmate necklace” he bought in New York “in case I ever found the one for me” — it was made of half a pendant that connected together, with the other half kept by Osmond.

The teacher sent his student hundreds of Facebook messages over more than a year — many sexual in nature. Picture: Stock image

The student began to feel unsafe around his teacher, the panel finding reveals.

A week after the carpark meeting, Osmond told the boy during a driving lesson, “I would never make a move on you unless you wanted me to”.

Then, when the teen was at Melbourne Airport to fly interstate for a scholarship interview, Osmond repeatedly texted him pressing for his flight details as he prepared to board — about 10 minutes later, the teacher appeared to see him off.

About this time, the student cancelled their driving lessons, stating he wanted to be a “normal school kid” and catch the bus, then confided in his mother about Osmond — the out-of-hours contact, the soulmate necklace and being taken to meet Osmond's mother at his house.

They decided to report the teacher after the boy’s Year 12 studies were over.

Osmond later resigned when he was questioned by the principal about his conduct.

The Department of Education and Training alerted the VIT to allegations of “systematic emotional manipulation and improper conversation with a student comprising sexual innuendo” in April last year.

Osmond did not attend a panel hearing in September, which found he exhibited behaviour towards the student “characterised by a pattern of growing familiarity to the point of obsession”.

However, Osmond did submit a letter defending himself.

‘I’m not just a good teacher,” he wrote. “I’m an exceptional teacher, not because of my qualifications but because of the way that I have cared for, helped and supported kids, especially those who are different, lost, alone or abused, all my life.

“I will continue to do this, it may not be in the classroom but no-one can stop me supporting kids who have been abused. There are a number of caring organisations I have worked with in the past who I will offer time to again. A classroom is simply one way of teaching. I will always be an educator or mentor in some way and I will always support kids in need.”

VIT chief executive Peter Corcoran said an independent panel found Osmond failed to maintain a professional relationship with the student.

“In the course of the hearing, the Panel found Mr Osmond’s behaviour constituted a substantial departure from the expectations of a member of the teaching profession and therefore amounted to serious misconduct,” he said.

Osmond received the maximum possible penalty from the VIT — his registration was cancelled and he was disqualified from applying again for five years.

He will be permitted to reapply after five years, though his suitability to teach would be investigated.

An order prevents the Herald Sun from naming the school.

The panel’s full decision can be found here.

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