'School porn' student gets $30k

A FORMER student wrongly blamed for viewing pornography on a high school internet account has been given $30,000.

A FORMER student wrongly blamed for viewing hundreds of pornographic websites - some featuring "rapes" - on a high school internet account has been given $30,000 in hush money by South Australia's Education Department.

The settlement requires the former student to keep details of the case secret. And it comes more than seven years after an investigation into whether his teacher was in fact the culprit. The teacher is still working for the Education Department, at a different government school in Adelaide's southern suburbs.

The Year 8 co-ordinator declined to comment when contacted at the school yesterday, saying the matter had been investigated and dealt with at the time.

The teacher allegedly viewed hundreds of explicit websites using the internet login of the then Year 10 student in 2004. It is understood among the websites searched and viewed were those dedicated to "rape sex photos" and "rape pictures", along with "virgin sex pictures" and "slut pictures".

An Education Department spokeswoman yesterday said, "an investigation was conducted into alleged access of a variety of inappropriate websites". "As a result of the investigation, the teacher received a direction in relation to safeguarding (department) computers," the spokeswoman said.

The student was suspended from the school for five days after the pornography was found on his internet account log.

"The student . . . received a letter of apology from the principal," the spokeswoman said.

Not long after, he left the school without completing Year 10. The former student declined to comment when contacted yesterday by The Australian.

It is understood the $30,000 was paid to the man on the condition the entire case, including all facts and circumstances involving the matter and leading up to the settlement, be kept confidential and never disclosed to anyone.

Sources said the agreement was reached in February last year, about four months after Grace Portolesi took over as education minister from Premier Jay Weatherill.

Ms Portolesi was replaced by Jennifer Rankine in January, as the state's Labor government reeled from the fallout of a separate school sex abuse case that had been kept from a school community for two years.

The case led to a royal commission that in July criticised some of the same senior officials involved in organising the $30,000 settlement in the porn case.

Former Education Department chief executive Keith Bartley, who resigned a fortnight after the release of the royal commission's damning report for personal reasons, wrote to the student to "unreservedly apologise" for failing him and to acknowledge the department's "less than appropriate" dealings. "It is clear we have let you down," he said in a letter dated February 20 last year.

The then head of schools Garry Costello and then head of the department's legal affairs unit, were involved in negotiating a settlement with the man last year.