Disciplinary Tribunal case: Teacher admits asking 17yo to sleep with him

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A 17-year-old girl says she was offered $10,000 to drop a complaint against a family friend who came into her room in the hope she would sleep with him.

The girl, who has name suppression, made the claim at a hearing of the Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal where the man, who is a teacher, faced a charge of serious misconduct.

“I was so scared, nothing like this had ever happened to me before,” the girl told the tribunal in her evidence today.

“I could feel he was touching my knee and rubbing my knee in an inappropriate way.”

According to the notice of charge the teacher, who also has name suppression, was a friend of the girl’s family and after a night of heavy drinking, came into her room where she was sleeping. Although he is a registered teacher, the victim was not a student of his.

He then told her that he liked her and asked if he could sleep with her, before attempting to grab her hand, then pulling the blanket off her and touching her knee.

The girl said she told the man no before he left the room and she called her mother and told her what had happened.

In her evidence the girl said a meeting was called between her own family and the teacher’s the following day.

At that meeting, the girl said the teacher denied what had happened, would not apologise and also said he was so drunk he didn’t remember what happened but did recall entering her room. He also accused the girl of lying about how the interaction unfolded.

“If I was lying I wouldn’t be sitting here, I have exams to prepare for,” she said.

“They were begging me and my family not to call the police.”

The girl then claimed she was offered $10,000 to not take the complaint any further.

However, the girl did make a complaint to police, who opted not to take the matter any further and instead referred it to the Complaints Assessment Committee of the Teacher’s Council, which laid a charge against him.

The tribunal hearing was set down for three days but after the victim gave evidence this morning, the teacher accepted the charges against him on the basis he couldn’t remember what happened on the night.

His counsel said the teacher didn’t want to prolong matters for the various witnesses and intended to issue a statement of remorse.

“I feel really sorry and don’t want to cause any more distress,” the teacher told the tribunal this afternoon.

“I just wanted to say sorry to both families, because I know they’ve gone through so much stress.”

He said he had no recollection of the night and since then had stopped drinking entirely.

The tribunal will issue a ruling on penalty in writing at a later date.

Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.