Teh One Who Knocks
05-08-2015, 11:15 AM
JOSH FAGAN - Auckland Now
An Auckland teacher accused of masturbating in a classroom has admitted he was looking at pornography at the time but says he is 100 per cent certain he was not masturbating.
A student of the school alleges he peered through a window and saw the teacher, with his pants down around his thighs, masturbating.
The teacher, whose name is suppressed, is on trial charged with committing an indecent act in a public place.
In a police interview read to the Auckland District Court on Friday the teacher said he was viewing explicit material on his school laptop through the blogging website Tumblr.
He told the police interviewer it was a "poor error of judgment" to be viewing pornography websites during school hours, but insisted his trousers were on the entire time and he was not aroused.
He stressed during the interview that he had remained fully clothed at all times and had never masturbated on school grounds.
A student this week testified he had gone to the classroom with a friend to talk to the teacher about his attendance.
Rather than knock on the door he got his friend to "boost" him up to the windows high on the classroom wall because he expected the door to be locked.
He told the court he saw the teacher looking at his laptop computer and masturbating.
But according to the teacher there were "inconsistencies in his story".
He said the student, who was peering through a 2.3m high window would have had his view of the desk obscured from that vantage point.
The design of the chair was also different from what the boy had described, he said.
After the incident was raised by the student to other teachers and an official complaint was made to police.
The school suspended the teacher shortly after the alleged incident took place and he resigned a month later.
Judge Anne Kiernan has heard the trial alone, without a jury.
She said she would deliver a decision on Monday on whether the indecent act did occur and whether the school constituted a public place.
Neither the student, the teacher nor the school involved can be named due to suppression orders.
An Auckland teacher accused of masturbating in a classroom has admitted he was looking at pornography at the time but says he is 100 per cent certain he was not masturbating.
A student of the school alleges he peered through a window and saw the teacher, with his pants down around his thighs, masturbating.
The teacher, whose name is suppressed, is on trial charged with committing an indecent act in a public place.
In a police interview read to the Auckland District Court on Friday the teacher said he was viewing explicit material on his school laptop through the blogging website Tumblr.
He told the police interviewer it was a "poor error of judgment" to be viewing pornography websites during school hours, but insisted his trousers were on the entire time and he was not aroused.
He stressed during the interview that he had remained fully clothed at all times and had never masturbated on school grounds.
A student this week testified he had gone to the classroom with a friend to talk to the teacher about his attendance.
Rather than knock on the door he got his friend to "boost" him up to the windows high on the classroom wall because he expected the door to be locked.
He told the court he saw the teacher looking at his laptop computer and masturbating.
But according to the teacher there were "inconsistencies in his story".
He said the student, who was peering through a 2.3m high window would have had his view of the desk obscured from that vantage point.
The design of the chair was also different from what the boy had described, he said.
After the incident was raised by the student to other teachers and an official complaint was made to police.
The school suspended the teacher shortly after the alleged incident took place and he resigned a month later.
Judge Anne Kiernan has heard the trial alone, without a jury.
She said she would deliver a decision on Monday on whether the indecent act did occur and whether the school constituted a public place.
Neither the student, the teacher nor the school involved can be named due to suppression orders.