A Bay of Plenty teacher is facing charges from the disciplinary tribunal after she married her former student.
Fairfax reported that the teacher, 39, married her student after he was released from jail, and a lawyer for the Education Council said the teacher has engaged in serious misconduct.
The teacher, who has interim name suppression, taught the student in 2010. The student then went to prison in 2011.
She is charged with forming an inappropriate relationship with an ex-student and misleading the complaints committee about the nature of the relationship, Fairfax reported.
Details of the student's conviction and sentence have been suppressed.
The student is now 23, and allegedly made more than 1000 calls to his former teacher while in prison, Fairfax reported. Both deny they were romantically involved during that time.
The teacher visited the student in prison, by herself and with the student's mother, according to Fairfax. He left prison in 2013.
A lawyer for the Education Council's complaints assessment committee, Dale La Hood, read a text message from 2014 that he said proved there was a relationship between the two at that time.
Allegedly from the student to the teacher, the message read "Baby after a year and a half I love you more and more every day", Fairfax reported.
The teacher was cross-examined by La Hood, who said the numbers shown in the text messages belonged to her and her former student.
But she said they were "not something that I would send".
The student was also cross-examined and said he did not send the messages, saying there were several people who had access to his phone.
The teacher was interviewed by the complaints assessment committee in December 2015, where she denied a relationship with the student. They were married the next month.
The teacher's lawyer Dzintra King said her client denied any misconduct and the relationship began long after the student was released from prison.
She resigned from the school in 2014.
The lawyers will submit their closing statements to the tribunal next month, with a decision expected later in the year.