A former conductor of the Auckland Symphony Orchestra has been found guilty of serious misconduct by the Teachers’ Disciplinary Tribunal after having sex with a student at the top girls’ school he worked at.
Peter Thomas has lost his fight to keep details about the relationship secret, including “credible evidence” from the student that he would sign her out of class so she could meet him in the school music library.
The tribunal evidence found Thomas “prevailed on [the student] to have sex with him, which ... was painful but to which she felt she could not say no”.
While the allegations of the sexual relationship between the former Epsom Girls’ Grammar School head of music and the girl had been publicised in 2021, the Herald can now reveal he was censured and struck off by the tribunal.
A High Court judgment on August 30 rejected Thomas’s application for a judicial review into the 2023 tribunal decision.
Justice Gerard van Bohemen declined to suppress his name and details of the conduct revealed in the ruling.
According to the student’s evidence, the school became aware of the relationship through Facebook messages between the student and her friend in November 2019.
When the student told Thomas of a meeting she had at the school with her parents, he “became angry” and told her to say “she had been lying and he had not done anything with her”.
He also asked the student “to think about him and his job”.
In a statement provided on Friday via his lawyer, Simon Mitchell KC, Thomas apologised for his actions.
“I deeply regret my actions and sincerely apologise for the impact on everyone involved. That is all I wish to say on the matter,” Thomas said.
According to a summary drawn from the tribunal decision, Thomas had worked for more than 17 years at Epsom Girls’ Grammar and was head of the music department when he resigned in 2020.
The student attended the school, excelled at music and was a member of the school orchestra, which Thomas conducted.
He also taught her in 2017 and 2018, and the following year she worked Saturdays at an extra-curricular music school administered by him.
From the end of Term 3, 2019, and into the holidays Thomas initiated hugging, kissing and sexual touching with the student in the music library.
The next term he began signing her out of class frequently so she could meet him there.
“Sexual contact increased, with the applicant having digital contact with Student A’s vagina, placing Student A’s hand on his penis asking her to give him a blow job, and attempting unsuccessfully to have sexual intercourse,” the document said.
In November, the document said, he “prevailed” and the pair had sex.
Later that month the school became aware of messages the student had sent her friend about Thomas having sex with her.
When asked about the messages at the school meeting the student said it was untrue.
Besides asking the student to confirm in writing her Facebook messages about her relationship with Thomas were untrue, the school took no further action. The pair’s relationship continued into the next year after she graduated.
In May or June 2020, the student ended contact with Thomas and told her parents about the relationship.
A few months later she filed a complaint with the police, however, police did not lay charges as she was over 16 and had consented.
She then made a formal complaint to the school in August, which gave him written notice of the complaint and placed him on leave.
In a letter the following month, Thomas admitted to having sex with her in March 2020, and that it was inappropriate and unprofessional, but he denied the 2019 events.
In August 2021, Thomas stepped down as conductor of the city’s symphony orchestra amid allegations he had an inappropriate relationship with a student.
In the email he sent to his members of the Auckland Symphony Orchestra he didn’t say why he had resigned as conductor.
“I have loved working with you over the last 11 years and am very proud of what we have all done,” he wrote.
The teachers’ Complaints Assessment Committee laid charges against him in August 2022.
These alleged he signed the student out without a legitimate reason, that he was intoxicated while supervising students at various school events, that he offered her alcohol at an event and had a sexual relationship with her.
The charges were then heard by the tribunal in July 2023.
It dismissed the charge relating to alcohol but had “no hesitation” in finding his behaviour met the threshold for serious misconduct.
“The impact of the respondent’s conduct was undeniably adverse. As a secondary school student in 2019, she was in a situation over which she felt no control and which damaged her relationships with her family, friends, and the school,” the decision said.
“It was profoundly wrong of [Thomas] to have commenced a sexual relationship while Student A was at school, and he showed no regard for the impact of this on her at the time. He continued to show little regard for this during the hearing.”
As a result his registration was cancelled and he was censured.
When it came to deciding whether non-publication orders should be in place, Thomas’s lawyer at the time argued publication would have detrimental consequences on him and his family, which outweighed the public interest in his name being released.
Thomas had also asserted he was not mentally well in the lead-up to his inappropriate conduct, which the tribunal said he did not provide specific evidence to support.
The Complaints Assessment Committee did not support this application.
Ultimately, the tribunal did not consider it proper to grant wholesale suppression, and instead suppressed the complainant’s name and contents of their Facebook messages.
Mitchell, who represented Thomas at the High Court, noted the District Court held there was no right of appeal from tribunal decisions on non-publication.
Because of the lack of this right, he submitted the issue of publication should be amenable to judicial review.
He submitted that the tribunal did not set out the test in its decision or what was required of it to be satisfied non-publication should be ordered.
Mitchell also said it failed to give full consideration of his client’s mental health evidence and failed to consider other affidavits submitted by Thomas’s relatives.
His position was opposed by the Complaints Assessment Committee, which prosecuted the earlier case against Thomas.
The committee submitted the tribunal had adopted the correct legal test.
At the High Court at Auckland, Justice van Bohemen did not believe the tribunal’s decision not to grant suppression was out of step with previous rulings referred to by Mitchell.
While Justice van Bohemen acknowledged the tribunal did not “fully engage” with evidence from Thomas’s clinical psychologist, it was general and could have been regarded as providing an insufficient basis that he could be seriously at risk by publication.
“This is not a case that calls for intensive review. It cannot be said that publication of the applicant’s name and the details of the tribunal’s decision would be unusual or would result in a serious injustice,” Justice van Bohemen said in his ruling.
The application, therefore, was dismissed and Thomas was ordered to pay the committee’s costs.
The Herald attempted to approach Thomas for direct comment at Glengarry Wines in Devonport. Staff said he stopped working there some weeks ago.
Katie Harris is an Auckland-based journalist who covers social issues including sexual assault, workplace misconduct, crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2020.
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