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A disgraced British teacher - struck off for asking 13-year-old pupils which of them was most likely to be raped - has been teaching in New Zealand after an embarrassing blunder by authorities.
Fiona Forster, who was also suspended in Britain for selling cigarettes to pupils, is now
the focus of at least one top-level inquiry here.
Forster has resigned from her teaching post at the Southern Cross Campus in Auckland. On Friday the school, which teaches students from Year 1 to Year 13, referred a new allegation about her actions there to the Teachers Council disciplinary body.
The case is an international embarrassment for education authorities, who say they carried out proper checks. British authorities deny this and a simple internet search on the name "Fiona Forster" yields plenty of reports on her previous troubles.
According to the Daily Mirror newspaper, Forster held a quiz at Wilmington Enterprise College in 2006, asking 13-year-olds: "Which one of you would be most likely to be raped?"
The Teachers Council says it is working to improve communications with overseas authorities, asking for notification of any teachers who are suspended or struck off. Processes were meant to have been tightened last year after the Herald on Sunday revealed 37 teachers, with convictions such as battery of an 11-year-old, importing ecstasy and supplying cannabis to minors, sexual abuse of a teenage girl and sex with students, had been allowed back into classrooms.
In February, England's General Teaching Council found Forster guilty of making inappropriate sexual comments to students. As well as the rape quiz, a council disciplinary hearing was told Forster talked to her pupils about a cherry tree where students were rumoured to lose their virginity and spoke about her boyfriend having "the snip". She was banned from teaching.
She told the council in a letter that she was stressed, living abroad and did not intend teaching in Britain again. She denied misconduct.
In November 2006, Forster was suspended from teaching for six months after she sold cigarettes to students during a school sports day at Meopham School in Kent. When the principal began investigating, she texted one of the pupils threatening suicide.
The council found her guilty of unacceptable professional conduct and attempting to cover up her actions by persuading students to lie about the source of the cigarettes. Forster also has a conviction for shoplifting. She could not be contacted yesterday.
An ex-flatmate in Papatoetoe said Forster had stayed with her last week and told her of the latest allegation.
"I really didn't want to know because my daughter went to that school," the woman said. "She was great with my 11-year-old daughter."
The flatmate said Forster denied the allegation against her and claimed to have a witness to back her up.
The director of Southern Cross Campus in Mangere, Robin Staples, refused to answer Herald on Sunday questions about Forster, and how she came to be teaching in New Zealand. "There is a process under way but there's no comment."
Teachers Council head Peter Lind confirmed Forster was being investigated. She was given a provisional licence to teach last year, and this was due to expire in January 2010.
"As soon as we get a mandatory report we'll be moving as quickly as we possibly can in terms of suspension of a practising certificate. That can happen in a matter of days," he said.
"I can't divulge what the council will be investigating at the moment... It will go immediately to a complaints assessment committee, and they have the capacity, if they think there is any issue over health and safety of children, to suspend her registration immediately."
Lind said the council had made checks on Forster with Britain's Department for Children, Schools and Families, one of the bodies responsible for teachers.
"She declared on her application that there were no matters that she'd been disciplined about previously, so the council then registered her at that point," Lind said.
"Everybody has a police vet. Clearly if it's not a criminal conviction, it doesn't appear on a police vet. We also do the other checks we can with other professional bodies - which we've done in this particular case and nothing came through. We will follow up now internationally with that body."
Asked if Forster would have been registered if the council had known about her past, Lind said, "No".
However, it appears the council made checks with the wrong agency.
Alan Meyrick, the registrar of England's General Teaching Council, said that council had not been approached about Forster.
"We would respond to any request from the New Zealand Teachers Council, or any other professional regulatory body, to confirm an individual teacher's registration status and to confirm if there was any disciplinary sanction on their register."
He said his council provided the Department for Children, Schools and Families with details of all suspended and struck-off teachers.
Southern Cross Campus formed in 1995 after three schools combined. According to the Education Review Office, 70 per cent of the school students are Pacific Islanders, 26 per cent Maori, 2 per cent European, and 2 per cent Asian. Olympic gold medal shotputter Valerie Vili is a former student.
* Teachers in the headlines
Suspended Hato Paora principal Elvis Dobson Shepherd is on bail, awaiting trial in March, on nine sex abuse charges against boys.
Former Gisborne music teacher Stephen Michael Shone, 30, was jailed for eight-and-a-half years last month after pleading guilty to 11 charges of sexual violation and indecent assault.
Former Pleasant Point Primary School teacher Les Hay was released on parole last month after serving 18 months for historical sex offences.
Christchurch tutor Donald John Gould, 38, has been remanded on bail waiting to be sentenced after he admitted having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student. He pleaded guilty to charges of unlawful sexual connection and doing an indecent act.
In July 2007 Kawerau College principal Steve Hocking admitted unwittingly hiring a man charged with serious misconduct for posting pornography of himself online, with notes asking girls - "the younger the better" - to contact him.
In February last year, the acting principal of Gisborne's Lytton High was jailed for downloading child porn on a school computer. Norman Foote pleaded guilty to 20 charges and was jailed for 10 months but given leave to apply for home detention.
- ADDITIONAL REPORTING: Carolyne Meng-Yee
