03-04-2006, 09:46 PM
School did not act on paedophile abuse of AS boy
"culture of abuse" at school
By HELEN BAIN
Sunday Star-Times - New Zealand
05 March 2006
Former Bayfield High School principal Bruce Leadbetter took no action to deregister a teacher who sexually abused two students, one victim's foster mother says.
The woman's concerns about Leadbetter's inaction paint a picture of a school in which serious concerns about teachers' conduct were not acted on, in what the woman calls "a culture of abuse".
Prime Minister Helen Clark's justification for retaining former Bayfield teacher David Benson-Pope as a minister has been her contention that the allegations of him mistreating students were so minor they did not warrant disciplinary action by the Dunedin school.
But the foster mum - who cannot be identified for legal reasons - tells a story that suggests the school would not take action in even more serious cases of abuse.
Her foster son, who had a mental age of 10, was in Bayfield's special needs unit while in his mid-teens during the 1980s, at the same time Benson-Pope was a teacher there. The boy, who was brain damaged as a baby and had Asperger's syndrome, told his foster mother a Bayfield teacher took him and another special needs student into a room behind their classroom and made them perform oral sex on him.
The woman reported the matter to police, and the teacher pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual indecency involving the boys. He was jailed for eight months. His name was suppressed to protect his brother, who held a high-profile position connected with children.
The boy's foster mother approached Leadbetter after the teacher was freed from prison to try to have him deregistered, but Leadbetter would not take any action, she said. It was only after a year-long battle, when she took the matter to education authorities and wrote to then St Kilda MP Michael Cullen, that the teacher was deregistered.
A 1990 letter from Cullen to the woman confirms the deregistration. The woman said she feared the man could re-offend if allowed to teach children again, but Leadbetter, a principal at Bayfield from the early 1980s until 1997, did not seem to share her concerns and told her he could do nothing.
"If I hadn't put the pressure on, the school wouldn't have done anything," the woman said. She felt he looked after teachers instead of the whole school community.
Her foster son, now in his 30s, had ongoing sexual problems, but she said it was difficult to tell how much was caused by the teacher.
National MP Judith Collins said Leadbetter had been unusually reluctant to deal with the teacher.
"You can see it would have taken an extraordinarily brave and persistent parent to get Leadbetter to take action over any complaint about a teacher, if this is how he failed to act in this case," she said.
Collins said Cullen - who also had children at Bayfield at the time - was clearly aware of the "culture of abuse" because the woman had alerted him to it.
When contacted by the Star-Times, Leadbetter said: "I have no recollection of what she is talking about" and hung up.
Benson-Pope said he recalled the teacher being sent to jail but could not say whether it demonstrated anything about the school's complaints procedure.
"culture of abuse" at school
By HELEN BAIN
Sunday Star-Times - New Zealand
05 March 2006
Former Bayfield High School principal Bruce Leadbetter took no action to deregister a teacher who sexually abused two students, one victim's foster mother says.
The woman's concerns about Leadbetter's inaction paint a picture of a school in which serious concerns about teachers' conduct were not acted on, in what the woman calls "a culture of abuse".
Prime Minister Helen Clark's justification for retaining former Bayfield teacher David Benson-Pope as a minister has been her contention that the allegations of him mistreating students were so minor they did not warrant disciplinary action by the Dunedin school.
But the foster mum - who cannot be identified for legal reasons - tells a story that suggests the school would not take action in even more serious cases of abuse.
Her foster son, who had a mental age of 10, was in Bayfield's special needs unit while in his mid-teens during the 1980s, at the same time Benson-Pope was a teacher there. The boy, who was brain damaged as a baby and had Asperger's syndrome, told his foster mother a Bayfield teacher took him and another special needs student into a room behind their classroom and made them perform oral sex on him.
The woman reported the matter to police, and the teacher pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual indecency involving the boys. He was jailed for eight months. His name was suppressed to protect his brother, who held a high-profile position connected with children.
The boy's foster mother approached Leadbetter after the teacher was freed from prison to try to have him deregistered, but Leadbetter would not take any action, she said. It was only after a year-long battle, when she took the matter to education authorities and wrote to then St Kilda MP Michael Cullen, that the teacher was deregistered.
A 1990 letter from Cullen to the woman confirms the deregistration. The woman said she feared the man could re-offend if allowed to teach children again, but Leadbetter, a principal at Bayfield from the early 1980s until 1997, did not seem to share her concerns and told her he could do nothing.
"If I hadn't put the pressure on, the school wouldn't have done anything," the woman said. She felt he looked after teachers instead of the whole school community.
Her foster son, now in his 30s, had ongoing sexual problems, but she said it was difficult to tell how much was caused by the teacher.
National MP Judith Collins said Leadbetter had been unusually reluctant to deal with the teacher.
"You can see it would have taken an extraordinarily brave and persistent parent to get Leadbetter to take action over any complaint about a teacher, if this is how he failed to act in this case," she said.
Collins said Cullen - who also had children at Bayfield at the time - was clearly aware of the "culture of abuse" because the woman had alerted him to it.
When contacted by the Star-Times, Leadbetter said: "I have no recollection of what she is talking about" and hung up.
Benson-Pope said he recalled the teacher being sent to jail but could not say whether it demonstrated anything about the school's complaints procedure.