Teacher Fiona Austin refused bail as judge lashes her ‘scandalous’ claims

A former Melbourne Senior Secondary teacher in jail for stalking a schoolboy has been blasted for her “breathtakingly insolent” conduct at trial.

Fiona Austin bombarded a student with more than 4000 texts and emails. Picture: Mark Stewart

A teacher jailed for stalking her student has been refused bail as a judge lashed her conduct at trial as “breathtakingly insolent”.

Former Melbourne Senior Secondary teacher Fiona Austin was jailed for at least 12 months in September after being found guilty of stalking and using a carriage service to harass a schoolboy and his mother.

The court heard she’d bombarded the boy with more than 4000 texts and emails in a disturbing years-long campaign where she labelled him a liar while also stating she wished she could see him again.

With time served, Austin should have been eligible for parole just 14 days after her sentence, but she refused to be parolled “because she will not acknowledge her guilt”, leading to an 18 month prison term.

But the ex-teacher has now applied for bail amid a bid to appeal both her conviction by jury and sentence following a three-week trial in which she represented herself.

In documents to the court, Austin made a written case for appeal claiming that the trial judge “hated me and wanted me found guilty”, “repeatedly and frequently interrupted me” and that “all prosecution witnesses lied under oath”.

Austin was found guilty of stalking and using a carriage service to harass a schoolboy and his mother. Picture: Mark Stewart

The 53-year-old also claimed the sentence was “influenced by the hostility of the trial judge”, was “designed to cause the greatest possible harm to me” and “designed to create the most scandalous of media reporting”.

Supreme Court judge Justice Phillip Priest on Wednesday denied her bail bid and “specifically” rejected her claims of her sentence being impacted by hostility, desires for harm and media reporting.

Rather, His Honour found these claims of Austin’s were “scandalous”.

In assessing her claims of being interrupted at trial, Justice Priest instead found that she had launched an “entirely unjustified” diatribe after County Court Judge Michael O’Connell had tried to direct her to focus on relevant issues during her opening address.

But she had rebuked that she would present her cause as she saw fit, whether that be in court or “to the media”, who she said the judge was “determined to get involved in this matter”.

Justice Priest found this rebuke was “breathtakingly insolent”, and that the County Court judge had laboured under difficulty with “patience and courtesy”.

Austin cross-examined her victim for 10 hours and 15 minutes during the trial – a practice which legal bodies are now calling to be outlawed much like in family violence and sex assault cases.

She will be eligible for release from jail in March, 2023.

Melbourne Senior Secondary, formerly known as New Generation College, was shut down by the government in 2015 for posing an “unacceptable risk” to students.

The school had been founded and led by principal Neil Lennie, a convicted fraudster.