Photo Credit: ABC
The headmaster of elite Sydney private school Cranbrook has resigned after allegations he kept a teacher on staff despite knowing about his alleged past sexual misconduct at a previous school.
The misconduct was first reported by the ABC’s Four Corners program and detailed a series of interactions where the teacher, who had recently been promoted, boasted in emails about looking up students’ skirts and described sexual fantasies. The emails were sent to a former female student of the teacher’s at a different school.
The teacher was put on leave this week.The Four Corner’s report didn’t just focus on this particular incident, it highlighted multiple allegations of mistreatment, abuse, and bullying among staff and students. The school said in a statement earlier this week that it handled disputes with “care and confidentially” and, only a few days ago, supported Cranbrook headmaster Nicholas Sampson.
But Sampson resigned on Friday morning, in a move that President of the school council, Geoff Lovell, said had resulted after an “irrevocable breakdown of trust between the headmaster and the school council.”In an email to the school community, he said the school council only became aware of “an extremely concerning past conduct matter involving a current senior school teacher” on Thursday and that none of the allegations from the ABC’s report involved past or present Cranbrook students.
Sampson has been accused of mishandling complaints about staff in the past, too. In 2016, he appeared before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, regarding how he had handled a 2004 incident while headmaster at Geelong Grammar School.Cranbrook in Sydney’s affluent eastern suburbs is one of the country’s richest private schools and counts people like former media magnate Kerry packer and co-founder of Atlassian, Mike Cannon-Brookes, as graduates. Tuition fees rise from just over $31,000 a year for kindergarten to around $46,000 a year for Years 11 and 12 students.Get the story that matters most each day. Subscribe to Australia Today’s daily newsletter here.
The misconduct was first reported by the ABC’s Four Corners program and detailed a series of interactions where the teacher, who had recently been promoted, boasted in emails about looking up students’ skirts and described sexual fantasies. The emails were sent to a former female student of the teacher’s at a different school.
The teacher was put on leave this week.
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But Sampson resigned on Friday morning, in a move that President of the school council, Geoff Lovell, said had resulted after an “irrevocable breakdown of trust between the headmaster and the school council.”In an email to the school community, he said the school council only became aware of “an extremely concerning past conduct matter involving a current senior school teacher” on Thursday and that none of the allegations from the ABC’s report involved past or present Cranbrook students.
Sampson has been accused of mishandling complaints about staff in the past, too. In 2016, he appeared before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, regarding how he had handled a 2004 incident while headmaster at Geelong Grammar School.Cranbrook in Sydney’s affluent eastern suburbs is one of the country’s richest private schools and counts people like former media magnate Kerry packer and co-founder of Atlassian, Mike Cannon-Brookes, as graduates. Tuition fees rise from just over $31,000 a year for kindergarten to around $46,000 a year for Years 11 and 12 students.Get the story that matters most each day. Subscribe to Australia Today’s daily newsletter here.