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Anglican Bishop Stands by St Michael's Collegiate after Second Teacher in Court over Student Sex

By Edith Bevin
ABC News
March 17, 2017

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-17/richard-condie-anglican-church-stands-by-st-michaels-collegiate/8361522

PHOTO: Bishop Condie says the school has good procedures in place to protect students. (ABC News: Sam Ikin)

Tasmania's Anglican Bishop Richard Condie is standing by Hobart's private girls school St Michael's Collegiate after a second case involving a former teacher having sex with a student.

A 56-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has admitted to maintaining a sexual relationship with a student in the 1990s.

The man, who is still registered to teach in two states, will be sentenced in May.

The teacher is the second senior staff member to be prosecuted for the sexual abuse of a student.

A former head of science, Nico Bester, was jailed in 2011 for the sexual abuse of a 15-year-old girl.

Collegiate is the sister school of The Hutchins School, which was investigated by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The elite girls school is not subject to the inquiry and Bishop Condie is standing by it.

"I think the role of the royal commission has been to highlight our failures in the past so that we're better with dealing with these matters in the future, and the school has good policies and procedures in place now for the protection of its students," he said.

"So I don't think it's a matter for the royal commission to investigate now — they've almost completed their work for this investigation."

Bishop Condie will front the commission on Monday to explain the role the church plays in Anglican schools.

He was made aware of the latest incident in recent weeks, before it came to court.

"It's always very sad when we have these breaches of trust in our schools and my thoughts and prayers go out to the student who's been affected by this," he said.

In a statement to the ABC, Collegiate's principal Judith Tudball said the school "regularly reviewed its policies and procedures, including those relating to child protection".

Case for independent review

Susan Fahey from the Women's Legal Service believes there is a case for a further probe.

"It is a bit of a shock. Whenever you have something that's one-off, I think people go, 'OK, well, that could happen'. But when you start having a number of these incidents proximate to each other, then I think you do need to look a little more closely at it and how that's prevented in the future," she said.

"Yes, someone should look at that and probably in doing some due diligence and looking back at it the school probably might like to consider having someone come in and look at it, just for their own peace of mind, to make sure that their processes are all good and clear and make sure this doesn't happen again.

"It certainly probably doesn't come into the severe end of the things that we've seen, but it's certainly up there with some of the things the commission has looked at."

The Sexual Assault Support Service's Jill Maxwell said the findings of the royal commission should be noted by all schools.

"We would expect that all schools in Tasmania, with the support of the Department of Education — both independent and public schools — would take on board the findings and recommendations and adapt all their policies and procedures to make their school is safe for children," she said.

 

 

 

 

 




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