Latest news with #teacher
RNZ News
10 hours ago
- RNZ News
Teacher faces four charges in Wellington District Court of indecent assault
The person is due to appear in court again next month. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King Secrecy surrounds the details of a teacher charged with multiple counts of indecent assault. The person appeared in Wellington District Court on Thursday, but all identifying information is suppressed until at least 19 August. They face four charges of indecent assault and one of intentionally impeding normal breathing by applying pressure to the throat. The charges relate to the period between mid December 2024 and late February of this year. The person is due to appear in court again next month. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
11 hours ago
- RNZ News
Teacher faces four charges of indecent assault in Wellington District Court
The person is due to appear in court again next month. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King Secrecy surrounds the details of a teacher charged with multiple counts of indecent assault. The person appeared in Wellington District Court on Thursday, but all identifying information is suppressed until at least 19 August. They face four charges of indecent assault and one of intentionally impeding normal breathing by applying pressure to the throat. The charges relate to the period between mid December 2024 and late February of this year. The person is due to appear in court again next month. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
Teacher banned from the classroom for life after sexual relationship with pupil
A veteran teacher once described as 'very popular' has been banned from the classroom after having a sexual relationship with a pupil. Andrew Brook, 61, a longstanding teacher at Queen Elizabeth High School in Northumberland, developed an 'inappropriate relationship' with a pupil between March 2019 and August 2020, and subsequently for six months after she left the school. The teenager described feeling like she could not say no to the then-56-year-old father as he frequently drove her to a remote car park to have sex in the back of his van, while she was in sixth form. Despite the girl's attempts to end the relationship, Brook convinced her to carry on the relationship into her first term at university, where he visited her despite the country being in a national lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic. She said the burden of having to lie about the relationship, an order by Brook, left her feeling estranged from her family and friends for over a year. 'Looking back at the relationship, I believe there was a lot of manipulation by Mr Brook,' she told the investigating panel. 'He was older and in a position of authority. I felt as though I could not say no to him in the relationship because of the position her was in. He had a lot of influence over me – he could have probably told me to do anything and I would have done it.' The panel issued an indefinite prohibition order against Brook after they found the teacher showed 'complete lack of insight and remorse' for his behaviour, as well as downplaying the impact his actions had on the girl. In a written response to the panel in February 2024, Brook accused the investigation of engaging in 'moral policing' outside of its remit, claiming the girl was not manipulated but 'knew what she wanted'. The Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) found his lack of remorse, as well as his 'attempt to minimise the impact of his behaviour of Pupil A', as 'evidence of a real risk of repetition'. The relationship began in early 2019 after Brook asked Pupil A to sit on his lap during a coach trip. A few weeks later, he sent a message wishing her luck for her A-Level exam. By the summer, the pair were messaging frequently. Pupil A said the messages were friendly in nature. But by December, the pair were meeting up at least once a week. They would meet just outside town after school. She said the meetings became 'quite intimate'. The following month, Brook picked the pupil up from work in his van, drove them down country roads into a remote car park and told her he had strong feelings for her. She said she knew the comments were 'weird' but she felt 'flattered'. A few weeks later, he took her to a car park again and kissed her multiple times. Pupil A said she initially felt 'conflicted and shocked' by Brook's advances. From March, they started having sex in the back of his van. Pupil A said they would 'park up, put the back seats down, pull the curtains round, then he would tell me to lie down and take my clothes off and we would have sex'. He then began to tell her he loved her, as well as buying her cans of alcohol. After Pupil A left for university, Brook began visiting her. During these visits, which were during a national lockdown, he would buy her alcohol, they would drink together and allegedly smoke marijuana, and they would sleep together. Pupil A described the relationship at that point as 'sexual' in nature. The pair would discuss politics, human rights and his longtime passion for Tibetan sovereignty. Pupil A said that by that point, she 'felt like a large part of the relationship was about sex for him'. It eventually ended between February and April 2021. The prohibition order stops Brook teaching in any classroom in England.
CBS News
a day ago
- CBS News
Families urge Maryland school not to bring back teacher acquitted of sex abuse
Several families launched a petition to urge a Maryland school district not to bring back Matthew Schlegal, a teacher who was acquitted of sex abuse in June. Schlegal was found not guilty on 18 counts of sex offenses, and three other charges were dismissed after a five-week trial. He was accused of sexually abusing eight of his students between 2022 and 2024 when he was a third-grade teacher at an Anne Arundel County elementary school. The parents of some of the alleged victims and child sex abuse advocates have continued to express their outrage after the trial, claiming Schlegal was wrongly acquitted. The petition, launched by the families through attorney Thiru Vignarajah, urges the school district to keep Schlegal out of the classroom. "Teaching is not a right—it is a responsibility and a privilege. We believe student safety must come first," the petition reads. After Schlegal was acquitted in June, the school district said it would work to finalize a review of his job status, as they are obligated to do under state law. According to Vignarajah, the school district said this week that it's still evaluating the employment decision. "The group is initiating a petition drive to ensure the public's voice is heard loud and clear: Individuals who betray our trust and exploit our children should never again teach in Anne Arundel County," Vignarajah said in a statement. Schlegel was released from custody shortly after the verdict, but is prohibited from contacting the alleged victims or their families, and cannot be unsupervised around minors. His attorneys said he suffered and would be in shock for some time.
BBC News
a day ago
- BBC News
Hexham teacher banned over sexual relationship with pupil
A teacher who "sought to exploit his position of trust" to begin a sexual relationship with a sixth form pupil has been banned from the Brook, 61, who worked at Queen Elizabeth High School in Hexham, continued the relationship when the teenager went on to started exchanging Facebook messages with the pupil and later bought her a Christmas present before telling her he had developed feelings towards her.A Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel found his behaviour fundamentally breached the standard of conduct expected. The teacher first sent a message to the girl, referred to as Pupil A, a message wishing her luck for her exams, the panel Messenger and WhatsApp conversations continuing over the summer months as the pair became A told the panel she began meeting up with Mr Brook once a week the following winter and said he "would hug me, mostly to just warm me up, but it became quite intimate and extended and he would invite me to put my hands under his shirt".Later, when she was revising for her mock exams in Mr Brook's classroom, he admitted he had feelings for her, Pupil A stated that the next day Mr Brook picked her up in his van, drove along country roads and pulled into a car park where he told her he really liked her and had not had feelings that strong her evidence, she said she knew this "was weird but she felt flattered". 'Moral policing' Their sexual relationship started the same month with Mr Brook driving them somewhere remote in his A said they would "park up, put the back seats down, pull the curtains round, then he would tell me to lie down and take my clothes off and we would have sex".The panel heard that in May or June of that year, Mr Brook told the girl he loved started university that September, with Pupil A saying the "relationship was sexual when he came to see me and he would bring wine, beer or gin and tonic in a can".In his written response to the panel, Mr Brook described the TRA investigation into events during Pupil A's time at university as "moral policing", adding it was a "private matter governed by privacy laws between two consenting adults and should stay that way".The panel determined that, even though Pupil A may have been over the age of 18 when the majority of the findings against Mr Brook took place, she was still considered to be a student at the school until 31 August of the year she said that "clearly amounted to a failure to maintain appropriate professional boundaries".Although accepting Pupil A's evidence that the relationship was consensual, the panel said there had been a "clear power imbalance throughout" and that continued when the girl moved to said Mr Brook had shown "a complete lack of insight and remorse" and that there was no evidence his "concerning and deep-seated attitude to personal relationships with pupils would, or could, change".The prohibition order imposed prevents him from teaching in England again. Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
