AN eight-year-old New Zealand girl says she had “private time” with her school teacher when he would smack her bottom and touch her genitals.
BUT she didn’t tell other people about what happened as her teacher said it was a secret and other children would be upset they weren’t getting the same treatment.
A 68-year-old former teacher is on trial at the High Court at Auckland accused of 25 counts of indecent conduct with 10 of his pupils in 2011 and 2012, while they were aged between six and eight.
In a 2012 video interview played to the court, one of the eight-year-old complainants said she often spent time with her teacher alone while she waited for her bus after school.
During that time he would ask her to pull down her pants and he would smack her bottom and say “naughty girl” in a funny way, she said.
She said her teacher put his hands down her clothes and felt her bum and “front bum” on a number of occasions in both the secluded classroom and a school shed
And her teacher touched her genitals during a game called “tickle torture” – touching the girl described as “gross”.
After the video was played, the girl, who’s now 10, said via a video link from another room she didn’t know why her teacher had asked her to pull her pants down.
But under cross examination by defence lawyer Richard Earwaker, the girl said she liked the tickle torture game and said others would ask him for tickles because he was “the tickle torture master”.
She agreed with Mr Earwaker that she liked spending time with her teacher because he was fun, and would often stay and help him even though he told her she needed to go.
But she insisted that he had asked her to pull her pants down while they were in the shed one afternoon, and said he had touched her beneath her clothes.
The girl acknowledged she’d had problems with a girl in her class, often didn’t get on with her stepdad, and had to go to a programme during class time for her behavioural issues.
She’ll continue being cross-examined on Tuesday.
(via News AU)
