A New Zealand teacher faced a serious misconduct charge after he synced his iCloud account with intimate photos to a school iPad. Photo / 123rf
A New Zealand teacher faced a serious misconduct charge after he synced his iCloud account with intimate photos to a school iPad. Photo / 123rf
A teacher who inadvertently synced his Apple account to school devices has found himself before a tribunal fighting to save his career after photos of him cuddling another teacher and sexualised memes were seen by students.
The nightmare scenario saw the teacher charged with serious misconduct after a student discoveredthe fully-clothed photos on an iPad, as well as a meme that joked about oral sex.
But in a decision of the Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal released this week, the tribunal dismissed the charges and accepted it was a mistake.
In 2020, the New Zealand teacher, whose name is suppressed, was in a relationship with another teacher at the school. A separate incident, not detailed in the decision, resulted in the teacher being placed on leave in June 2020.
Later that month he resigned from the school, returning in early July to give back his school-issued devices.
While students at the school each had their own device, a number of spare iPads were kept in the classroom.
Shortly after his resignation, a student was using one of the spare iPads and discovered images of their former teacher and another teacher at the school cuddling or lying close to each other. Both teachers were fully clothed.
Also synced to the iPad were sexual memes, one of which said “I really like your beard. Can I touch it ... with my vagina?”
The teacher had already resigned from the school before the photos were discovered. Photo / Bevan Conley
The student reported their discovery to the principal, who sent the iPad away for forensic analysis. That analysis found it was the syncing to the teacher’s iCloud account that populated the device with the images.
There was no evidence the teacher used the device to download or access the images himself.
The Teaching Council’s complaints assessment committee (CAC) charged the teacher with serious misconduct.
In reply, the teacher said he and the other teacher had been solely charged with managing the school’s devices.
“I pride myself on my professionalism and integrity, and I have let people down,” he said. “This indeed was a lapse of judgment and I am sincerely sorry to the children involved.”
He further explained he was the photographer for school events and had logged into the account as it was the most reliable way to transfer photos for use by the school.
The CAC submitted the viewing of the images was confusing to the student. It argued it could negatively impact their views on sexuality and healthy sexual behaviours, and could lead to an undermining of public trust in the profession.
But the teacher said the images were not sexualised and benign, showing an ordinary, loving couple. He accepted the language in the meme was likely to cause discomfort to the children, but would go over the heads of 5 and 6-year-olds, while older kids would be indifferent.
The tribunal ruled that while photos of two teachers cuddling would be “somewhat confusing”, it cannot be assumed it adversely affected the student.
“Would it have been argued that if the child came upon the two teachers hugging at school or kissing, that that would be sufficient to trigger this criteria for serious misconduct? That seems unlikely,” deputy chair Ian Murray wrote in his decision.
The tribunal accepted it was a lapse in judgment, but a mistake. It ruled the conduct didn’t meet the threshold for serious misconduct as charged, nor the lesser charge of misconduct.
The teacher applied for permanent name suppression, which was opposed by the CAC. However, having found the charges not made out, the tribunal granted a suppression order.
Ethan Griffiths covers crime and justice stories nationwide for Open Justice. He joined NZME in 2020, previously working as a regional reporter in Whanganui and South Taranaki.
