SA teacher who made sexual comments to boys online acquitted of charges
A teacher who made sexual comments to boys online has been acquitted of criminal charges, despite the judge describing his conduct as "reprehensible" and "outrageous".
The 29-year-old man was tried in the District Court by judge alone on five aggravated counts of communicating with the intention of making a child amenable to sexual activity.
The court heard that between 2011 and 2013 the man befriended three boys on Facebook who he had met while employed by the Education Department as a student mentor at a country school.
He later completed his Bachelor of Middle School Teaching and was employed as a teacher.
The court heard he began asking the boys sexual questions online, including asking the 10-year-old boy if he wanted to skinny dip with him at the beach and asking a 13-year-old boy if he would perform a sex act on him.
The man agreed the comments were made but told the court he was "just joking around".
In his judgment, Judge David Smith said he regarded the comments as highly inappropriate but said there was not enough evidence that the accused intended to groom the boys for sex.
Teacher knew communications were unacceptable
"The communications to each of the complainants are outrageous and inappropriate in the extreme," Judge Smith said.
"Despite the florid and sexually explicit content of the communications, he protested that he intended them as either a joke or part of a healthy introduction of the boys to their sexuality.
"The prosecution contended that the only inference to be drawn from the proven circumstances is that the accused communicated with each of the boys for his own sexual gratification and that he did so with the intention of making the boys amenable to sexual activity with him."
Judge Smith said the accused knew the communications were unacceptable.
"On a number of occasions ... he expressed concern that other people not see the material and, in that respect, he lied to [one of the boy's] mother about his phone being 'hacked' in an effort to cover his awful behaviour," Judge Smith said.
However, Judge Smith said the prosecution could not prove a crucial element of the offence - that the accused made the communications with the intention of making the boys amenable to sexual activity.
Judge Smith said while the teacher's communication with the boys was "reprehensible", the teacher never raised sexual matters with the boys in person or tried to initiate sexual activity with them in person and therefore had to be acquitted of the charges.
He said an alternative charge was needed to deal with the "mere making of such communications to children".
