A Wellington teacher disguised himself as a drug dealer and deceived a 14-year-old student into performing a sex act on him in exchange for cannabis.
A recently released Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal decision detailing the man’s behaviour revealed he was struck from the register after being convicted of the “troubling” crime.
The teacher, whose name was suppressed alongside the victim’s, worked at a Wellington school between April 2019 and July 2020.
The man, aged 25 at the time, was the 14-year-old’s teacher. The pair got to know each other through their teacher-student relationship, which escalated to them leaving school grounds to get lunch together.
They began talking over social media and meeting outside of school, where the teacher offered the teen free cannabis.
During their first meeting at a bus stop in Upper Hutt, the man gave her cannabis and said he had a friend who could give her more for free.
When she contacted him to ask for more, the teacher said he was out of Wellington but had a friend named “Joseph” who could supply it.
“Joseph” didn’t exist and was a fictitious character invented by the teacher.
When the pair met, the teacher was disguised as “Jospeph”, wearing clothes that hid his body and face and gave the girl two bags of free cannabis.
The teacher continued to contact the student, who said “Joseph” wanted to give her more cannabis in exchange for oral sex.
Meeting at a local school, he once again showed up in disguise, offering the girl more bags of cannabis and $100 in cash if she performed oral sex. She agreed but quickly stopped and left.
Following this, the teacher made one last attempt to contact the victim using the fictitious Facebook profile “Joseph Porter”, again offering her cannabis for sex and oral sex.
She did not meet him.
In September 2022, the teacher was convicted at the Wellington District Court after he pleaded guilty to sexual connection with a young person under 16, indecent communication with a young person under 16, and supplying a class C controlled drug to a person under 18.
He was sentenced to nine months home detention and was granted permanent name suppression.
The recently released Teachers Tribunal decision found the man’s crimes amounted to serious misconduct, and his registration was cancelled.
“We do not need to consider these issues in any great depth as sexual offending against a student clearly satisfies all of the suggested criteria and is clearly serious misconduct,” the tribunal report said.
“The actual and potential impact on [the student] is obvious. Any teacher who behaves in that way is not fit to be a teacher and members of the public would rightly conclude that the teaching profession was undermined and discredited by such behaviour.
“Further it is emotionally abusive, breaches clear professional boundaries and is serious criminal behaviour.”
The man did not attend the tribunal hearing but submitted to the panel explaining the “context” of his behaviour. These were not included in the released decision.
