Former star Alice Springs school principal Gavin Morris found guilty of assaults against students
Gavin Morris has been found guilty of choking two Indigenous pupils and forcefully pulling the ears of two others.
Former Yipirinya school principal Gavin Morris has been found guilty of choking two of his young Indigenous students and forcefully pulling the ears of two others.
Judge Anthony Hopkins found the former star principal of the Alice Springs school, which educates Aboriginal students from the town camps and outstations, guilty of four of five charges of aggravated assault against children aged between eight and 13 years old.
Judge Hopkins also found the application of force did not fall within the boundaries of “appropriate discipline management”.
Mr Morris was found not guilty of one of the three choking charges as Judge Hopkins said he was “unable to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the application of force” after the court heard two varying accounts of the alleged incident.
Outside court, Mr Morris, who entered pleas of not guilty to each of the charges, told media he would not comment “at this point”.
The court heard a number of the children did not return to school following the assaults, which occurred in mid-2023.
Over two weeks in September, Alice Springs Local Court heard from four of the five children who were allegedly assaulted. The media was not allowed into the courtroom to hear their testimony due to a statutory prohibition.
Mr Morris, who was charged on August 8 last year, did not give evidence or call witnesses in his defence.
Judge Hopkins accepted the first child, aged 12 at the time, was an “honest witness” doing his best to recall the incident, and accepted he was held in a chokehold or headlock “so significant and sustained as to inhibit (his) breathing”.
The boy gave evidence he was walking through the school playground when he saw his little cousin-brother being bullied. He told the bullies to stop and they decided to fight him. He picked up a stick and threw it at one of the students and punched another.
He said Mr Morris arrived and grabbed him around the neck with his arm, choking him so that “he started to have trouble breathing, to panic and then get sleepy and black out. He said his heart was beating fast.”
Mr Morris walked him to the front office, continuing to hold him by the upper arms, as he kicked and punched Mr Morris, the boy said.
Judge Hopkins found the child was not “engaged in any application of force to another student that would warrant or justify physical intervention for the protection of any other student”.
“His refusal to return to school is consistent with his expressed fear. He said what happened made him stop going to the school he loved. Overall, his account was credible and compelling,” Judge Hopkins said.
He also found his mother’s account, who told the court she watched as her son yelled “I can’t f..king breathe”, “honest, credible and reliable”.
Judge Hopkins also found that Mr Morris was guilty of removing two boys – including an eight year-old boy – from the classroom forcefully by the ears causing “pain and stinging”, in relation to the second and third charges.
He found Mr Morris was angry when he entered a childcare centre where the boys had earlier spilled litres of paint, and accepted that three staff members – who later gave evidence about the incident – were present at the time.
He found the eight year-old’s evidence was “credible and reliable”.
“I find that the nature and extent of the force applied to each child’s ear was such as to shock eyewitnesses and cause pain and fear to the children,” Judge Hopkins said.
In relation to another choking charge, Judge Hopkins found beyond reasonable doubt that two of the boys had gained access to the hall without permission. “This followed a previous interaction in the canteen where (one of the boys) had angered Mr Morris,” he said.
Judge Hopkins said Mr Morris had arrived at the hall in anger.
“He applied force to (the boy). This included grabbing (him) by the throat and applying significant force to the point where he restricted (his) breathing or a number of seconds. This caused (him) to experience significant distress and fear.”
Judge Hopkins said the child recalled: “When he walked away to the hall and Mr Morris kept swearing at them including calling them ‘little black c..nts’.”
The child told the court in evidence he was “angry, scared, panicking and crying at the same time” as the incident occurred. He alleged Mr Morris held onto wrists and said “if you tell him I will hurt you more” as a teacher came past.
Mr Morris will return to court on December 8 before he is sentenced.
