‘I lost everything’: Predator teacher’s ‘disturbing’ interview
Middle-aged maths teacher Nicolaas Bester was jailed twice for his abuse of a 15-year-old student — but he says he is the real victim.
Nicolaas Bester was 58 years old when he groomed and repeatedly sexually assaulted a 15 year old student, Grace Tame, while he was a maths teacher at the elite St Michael’s Collegiate Girls’ school in Hobart.
On arrest police found 28 pieces of child pornography. He was convicted to 2 years 10 months jail, but following an early release, Bester reoffended by making child exploitation material, bragging online that the abuse of Grace was “awesome”.
He wrote “judging from the emails and tweets I’ve received the majority of men in Australia envy me. I was 59. She was 15 going on 25 … It was awesome.”
Now, the twice jailed paedophile claims he is the real victim.
In December 2017, Bester gave a 17-minute interview with conservative commentator, Bettina Arndt who — in a further violation — included Grace’s real name and photo in the video, without her permission.
In that video Arndt describes Grace’s behaviour as “sexually provocative” and laughs as she references Bester’s second offence of creating child exploitation material saying “I can imagine how easily this happens”.
The YouTube video is also highly sympathetic towards Bester, painting him as the victim and Grace as the aggressor.
“I lost everything, I lost my home … I lost my job, I lost my status in the community. I lost absolutely everything. It was a devastating time [for me]” says Bester.
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Later in the video, Arndt continues: “Over the years I’ve talked to many male teachers about sexually provocative behaviour from female students. Sensible teachers of course run a mile from these girls, but the teachers are still really vulnerable because they can easily be subject to false accusations if they reject or offend the young woman in question.
“The question that remains for me is whether there is any room in this conversation for talking to young people, particularly young girls, about behaving sensibly and not exploiting their seductive power to ruin the lives of men.”
Grace and her family say they were dismayed by the video and by Arndt’s commentary.
“Ms Arndt never reached out to me in the pursuit of balanced journalism; never heard my side of the story; was not present at any stage of the abuse; did not attend any of the court hearings; yet confidently labelled me a ‘provocative’ teenager who used her ‘seductive powers’ to ruin a man’s life,” Grace says.
“That she is so willing to support a twice convicted offender, trivialise the details of his heinous crimes, and even laugh off aspects of his offending is quite disturbing.
“I don’t harbour any ill will towards Ms Arndt, and I would be happy to sit down and have a chat with her to fill her in on some of the missing pieces in her reporting. I also would really like to know what she would have done. At 15.”
In October 2018, the video was pulled off YouTube after an investigation by Tasmanian police, as the video contained Grace’s real name and photo without her consent.
On LinkedIn, Bester says he now he intends to travel to South Africa to do musical concerts for orphans. On Twitter he remains a fan of Bettina Arndt.
Ms Arndt has previously responded to criticism over the video saying “I apologise to those I have offended by the relaxed tone of the interview”.
“Many people are confronted and offended by the fact that Bester doesn’t appear remorseful about what he did and don’t understand why I would choose to interview such an unsympathetic character. In our interview he did fully acknowledge his guilt and agreed that the prison sentence was appropriate for such a serious offence involving a teenage girl. I strongly believe our society must protect young people from sexual abuse and punish perpetrators severely.”
Nina Funnell is a Walkley Award winning journalist and a director of End Rape On Campus Australia. She is the creator of the #LetHerSpeak campaign.