Astonishing inadequacies in police investigation: ex-principal
The assault trial of former Alice Springs school principal Gavin Morris has ended after hearing about what the defence called “police ineptitude”. Prosecutors said Mr Morris had engaged in “gratuitous violence” against “vulnerable Aboriginal children”.
Gavin Morris’s lawyers have outlined the “absolutely astonishing … inadequacies” in the police investigation into the former Alice Springs principal, as prosecutors accused Mr Morris of “gratuitous violence” against five “vulnerable Aboriginal children”.
It comes as the officer in charge accepted she did not inquire about whether the school had CCTV, and on numerous occasions did not make inquiries to find various people named as witnesses to the alleged assaults by the child complainants.
Former Yipirinya principal Mr Morris has pleaded not guilty to five counts of aggravated assault against children under 16, including allegations he pulled the ears of two students and choked numerous others.
Mr Morris’s lawyer, John Wilson, in his closing submissions in the Northern Territory Local Court in Alice Springs, argued there were “inherent inconsistencies” with evidence and testimony related to all of the charges.
On the final day of Mr Morris’s nine-day trial, Mr Wilson also said a number of witnesses, including the mother of a child allegedly choked on the oval, “had an agenda” they “wanted to push”. He said the same of assistant teacher Kirra Voller, who witnessed the alleged ear-pulling incident, claiming she made “gratuitous comments” about Mr Morris’s PhD in Indigenous trauma.
In relation to the police investigation, Mr Wilson said there were “many, many people who one might expect could potentially shed light on the issues and we haven’t heard from them”.
“So there’s an absence of evidence and, for example, deficiencies in the complainant’s account,” he argued.
Earlier in the day, the court heard from current officer in charge Sarah Lucht, who during questions from the defence accepted she had found the names and contact details of only two staff members listed on the bottom of a school incident report, related to an alleged ear-pulling charge, on Thursday this week.
It followed Constable Lucht, who took over the investigation in December 2024, being asked to make inquiries by the prosecutors.
That incident report was somewhat different to part of an account given by other witnesses, Mr Wilson said.
Constable Lucht also agreed she did not speak to potential witnesses working at the canteen near where one child was alleged to have been pushed by Mr Morris, instead relying on the word of the school CEO who said staff didn’t want to speak to police.
“It is ineptitude of the highest order,” Mr Wilson said of the police investigation. “It’s not just Mr Morris it’s unfortunate for.”
Addressing Judge Anthony Hopkins, Mr Wilson said: “Your honour sits here not even knowing if there was CCTV active at the Yipirinya school … it just emphasises how deficient this investigation is.”
Prosecutor James Moore, in his closing submissions, outlined the testimony of child complainants that the media was not privy to during the trial.
The prosecutor called Mr Morris’s behaviour “gratuitous and retaliatory” and said it followed “some degree of misbehaviour on the part of the complainants”. Mr Moore said the principal thought he could get away with the “gratuitous violence”.
“(Mr Morris’s) target in each case was a vulnerable Aboriginal child. He couldn’t control his temper and he lashed out in each instance and grossly overreacted,” Mr Moore said.
In relation to the first charge, prosecutors allege Mr Morris choked a student on the oval, before Mr Morris took him to the front office in a headlock. The child told the court that he was in a “panic”, asked the principal to let him go, was not able to breathe, and felt like he was going to black out. The boy “pushed and punched the principal” to stop the alleged assault, he said.
Mr Moore said these are the adjectives “for a young Aboriginal witness … in his circumstances”.
When his mother arrived at the school to pick him up, Mr Morris was still assaulting the boy, Mr Moore said.
He then recalled the evidence of a 10-year-old complainant who said “it made him feel bad and sad” and was “stinging” when Mr Morris allegedly pulled his ear.
The boy gestured, during his testimony, how Mr Morris held his ear and the ear of another another boy in two hands.
Mr Moore described these as “all compelling examples of evidence of a 10-year-old boy”.
The court also heard for the first time about a further choking charge.
This boy alleged in his testimony that Mr Morris pushed him in the back and demanded he clean up some food tat had been dropped on the ground by another child. The boy then claimed Mr Morris choked him in the nearby hall.
Judge Hopkins has reserved his decision until October 15.
