Sunday, March 05, 2006

Bayfield High Abuser treated with kid gloves?

The Sunday-Star Times has an article about Bayfield High School, which only tangentially concerns David Benson-Pope. There was a teacher there who had been convicted for sexually abusing students at Bayfield High but Bruce Leadbetter, the principal at the time, took no action in deregistration for up to two years which gives some indication of the seriousness with which complaints against teachers there were handled. The interesting thing is this:
[The abuser's] name was suppressed to protect his brother, who held a high profile position connected with children.
I'm appalled. Merely because his brother is famous is no reason to give him name suppression. For example the brother of David Carter MP was convicted of receiving objectionable material but he didn't have his name suppressed. As a result, I am seriously getting the impression of favourable treatment.

Fortunately the NZ register of Cancelled Teachers is on-line (click the cancelled teachers button). Since Cullen's letter confirming the deregistration was dated 1990, the suspects name will have his registration number and not a zero number. There's about ten pages of names there but there are no Popes, no Cullens, no Hodgsons or Leadbetters (or even Lockes for that matter). There are a couple of Clarks but since Helen never taught children, it's unlikely to be them.