Teacher admits indecent acts on pupil

A trial was abandoned after an Auckland schoolteacher today changed his pleas to guilty to committing indecent acts on a primary school student.

In the High Court at Auckland Nicholas Raymond Baldwin, 62, admitted to six charges of doing indecent acts with a young person under the age of 16 and two counts of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection.

The offences were committed between January 1, 2007, and September 4, 2008.

Justice Geoffrey Venning discharged the jury this morning, after more than an hour of legal discussion.

Baldwin will be sentenced on April 20.

The name of the boy, and that of the school he attended and at which Baldwin taught, is suppressed.

Bail was refused and Baldwin remanded in custody.

When the trial started yesterday, Baldwin faced two charges of sexual violation, eight of doing indecent acts with a young person and one of meeting a young person following sexual grooming.

Opening the case for the Crown, prosecutor Josh Shaw said Baldwin was noticed by colleagues at the school getting very close to the boy, often meeting outside the classroom.

Mr Shaw said colleagues noted the "special relationship" but perhaps brushed aside its significance as Baldwin was experienced and well-regarded, though one told him he should not be alone with students.

But two women Mr Shaw described as "netball mums" became concerned in August 2008. They followed Baldwin and the complainant to an Auckland rugby clubrooms, where they took photographs of them which showed very close contact.

They took videos of the pair at a reserve the next day, after which police were contacted.

Police then took over surveillance and one officer noticed "three periods of prolonged kissing", after which they intervened.

The complainant was interviewed by police describing how the relationship began as non-sexual in 2006 before it graduated to cuddling, light kissing and then heavier kissing and sexual touching.

He said they often went to hiding places, like behind rugby clubrooms, "because we didn't want anyone else to think we were gay, because we weren't".

Mr Shaw said the interview showed "how much of a hold the accused had over the complainant, how well coaxed and groomed and manipulated he was. He didn't regard it as particularly wrong."

- NZPA