Former GP Rhys Cullen had been tutoring students at Mount Albert Grammar School in Auckland, where he has now been trespassed.
A struck-off doctor turned tutor for students at a top college was trespassed from the school after leaving staff feeling “bullied, threatened and harassed” by him.
Rhys Michael Cullen was banned in 2023 from entering the grounds of Mount Albert Grammar School and the Mount Albert Aquatic Centre, located on land owned by the college.
The school’s board told Cullen that staff felt unsafe dealing with him because of the way he communicated, making their work more “challenging and stressful” and leaving them “tired and exasperated”.
It believed Cullen insisted on taking, and on students taking, “uncompromising and intractable positions” on “non-issues”, and that he advised students to take “unduly aggressive and confrontational” positions when staff tried to mentor them.
Cullen, who lost his medical licence in 2007 for prescribing more than 46,000 pseudoephedrine tablets without just cause, has since been fighting in the courts to have the trespass order lifted.
He has argued that the school’s board did not have the power to trespass him, and that in doing so, it breached his and the students’ rights, and that he was not given a chance to be heard before the notice was imposed.
Today, the Court of Appeal released its decision on Cullen’s latest bid to overturn the Mount Albert Grammar School ban.
The ruling dismissed his appeal against a High Court judgment declining his application for judicial review proceedings on the matter.
According to the Court of Appeal’s decision, Cullen had provided tutoring and mentoring services to several students at the school between 2020 and 2023.
It stated that Cullen has a long‑standing interest in Māori and Pacific education and in 2019 he was asked by a friend to tutor a Year 10 student at the school.
Subsequently, he began providing the same service to other Mount Albert Grammar School students.
While the tutoring mostly occurred outside school hours and off school grounds, there were occasions when Cullen went on to the school’s grounds.
He did so without complying with the school’s procedures, such as signing in, the decision stated.
“He also engaged in email communications with staff that they found disruptive, and sometimes distressing. On one occasion, in a meeting with a teacher, he behaved in a way that the teacher found unacceptable,” the decision stated.
As well as tutoring, Cullen provided transport for a school sports team and watched their games, and also took them to the aquatic centre.
“Mr Cullen formed the view that the tutoring and mentoring services he was providing produced better results for the students than [the school],” the decision stated.
But the school had a different perspective.
“They considered that Mr Cullen questioned and challenged decisions made by staff which he did not agree with in a combative manner that they found challenging.
“They also considered that Mr Cullen was encouraging students to breach school policies and procedures.”
Senior staff complained that Cullen made serious allegations about them, including of lying and bullying, and repeated the allegations outside the school and encouraged at least one student to do the same.
They alleged Cullen undermined the staff’s authority and made it difficult to engage with and support the students with whom Cullen was associated.
An affidavit by staff described feeling “bullied, threatened and harassed” by him.
The school engaged a consultant to assist in managing its interactions with Cullen, who, in March 2023, with the authority of the school headmaster, Patrick Drumm, emailed Cullen advising the school was “preparing” a trespass notice that would be served on him.
The email said that, effective that day, Cullen was not to enter the school property, including the aquatic centre.
Cullen launched judicial review proceedings in the High Court against the school and the consultant, which Justice Neil Campbell went on to dismiss.
The judge found the board was entitled to issue the trespass notice, and while the board’s decision did engage some rights covered by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (NZBORA), it did not infringe those rights.
Justice Campbell also accepted that the board did not have authority to issue a trespass notice with respect to the aquatic centre, but noted the operator of the aquatic centre had supported the board’s decision.
He finally held that the consultant should not have been included in the proceeding, and ordered Cullen to pay costs.
Cullen later turned to the Court of Appeal, arguing that Justice Campbell had erred in several ways, including in finding that Cullen had trespassed on school property, that the notice did not infringe on NZBORA-protected rights, and against the costs ruling.
In today’s ruling, the senior court determined that the authority to be on land must be revoked first, and a trespass must then occur before a formal warning could be given under the Trespass Act.
The court found that before Cullen received the email warning of the trespass, he had been on the school grounds with authority and had not been asked to leave at anytime before the email.
“It follows that he was not a trespasser at the time the email was sent. Nor is it clear that the board had reasonable cause to suspect Mr Cullen was likely to trespass. Therefore, the board had no basis on which to give, or decide to give, a warning under the Trespass Act.”
However, while the email was not effective as a formal warning, it did revoke his authority to enter the premises, the court found.
“If he now enters the school grounds or the Aquatic Centre, a formal warning notice can be given under the Trespass Act which will lead to an offence if the warning is disobeyed.”
The Court of Appeal ruled the board had not acted unreasonably, and it did not consider that Cullen was entitled to be heard before his authority to enter the school was revoked.
It further found that the rights of Cullen and the students had not been breached, and there were no grounds to interfere with the High Court’s decision on costs.
The dispute with Mount Albert Grammar School is not the only college-related incident Cullen has been controversially linked to.
Last year, he made headlines for his ties to those behind the takeover attempt of Kelston Boys’ High School.
Youth worker Siaosi Gavet and small charity Bangerz Education and Wellbeing Trust (Bewt) unsuccessfully tried to forcibly convert the public school to a charter school.
Had the bid been successful, it would have enabled them to privately control the school against the wishes of the community, while being funded by taxpayers.
Cullen, who also has historical convictions for receiving stolen cars, was revealed to be working closely with Gavet and Bewt to support students attending the charity’s youth hub.
Mount Albert Grammar School was contacted for comment.
Tara Shaskey is an assistant editor and reporter for the Open Justice team. She joined NZME in 2022 and has worked as a journalist since 2014.