KEY POINTS:
A high school teacher all the girls had a "crush" on created an environment of trust only to breach it by getting too close to his students, Auckland District Court heard yesterday.
Heremia Smith, 30, former head of Maori studies at Glenfield College, is facing 11 charges of indecent assault involving a girl aged between 12 and 16, a sexual violation charge and two charges of sexual conduct with a young person aged under 16.
They related to alleged offending between 2002 and 2005.
Six of the seven complainants were students at Glenfield College on the North Shore.
Judge Josephine Bouchier yesterday lifted interim name suppression in the case.
Defence lawyers said that as a male teacher, Smith had put himself in a situation some might consider risky. He denied all charges.
Opening for the defence, Jenni Smith, assisting Gary Gotlieb, told the jury of six men and six women to put aside any preconceived notions of the case or any like it.
She said the onus of proof was on the Crown. It was not for Smith to prove his innocence.
The court heard how Smith was a dedicated teacher, a highly respected and trusted staff member who quickly rose through the ranks.
Crown prosecutor Anna Pollett said he had started working at the college in 2001 as a long-term reliever and the following year was made head of the department of Maori studies. She said Mr Smith regarded his role as a "24-hour job".
She claimed Smith was a mentor to Maori students, coached sports teams and led the kapa haka group but breached the "environment of trust" he had created.
Ms Pollett said the accusations dated from mid-2002, when a female student aged 14 at the time - who cannot legally be identified - started talking to Smith about problems with friends and family.
The Crown claims Smith once drove that complainant home in his car and, when they pulled up outside, asked her to put her seat down and pull her shirt up. She apparently refused and ran inside.
The student, now 20 and married, said in evidence yesterday that she had gone into Smith's office the next day, straddled him as he sat on a chair and taken off her top.
She said Smith touched her breasts for a couple of minutes and asked her if she would "go down" on him.
She said she did not because she felt "sick" and "a bit awkward" and went home.
Mr Gotlieb asked the woman if she had "a bit of a crush" on Smith.
"Who didn't?" she replied.
Mr Gotlieb asked the woman why she went back to the Maori room after the alleged incidents, which culminated in a meeting with her mother and the school's then-deputy principal in which Smith started crying.
She said she wanted "to see if there was something".
"I wanted to see if he would admit it," she said.
The case's most serious alleged incident - to which the sexual violation charge related - involved a 13-year-old who was not a student at Glenfield College.
Ms Pollett said that in July 2004 the girl was staying at Smith's Glenfield home before a holiday in Hawaii.
According to the Crown, Smith was in his room with the teenager and locked the door from the inside.
He apparently gave her a massage while she was clothed, had her masturbate him, then lifted her T-shirt and told her to take off her pants.
Ms Pollett said it stopped when the teenager said she was tired.
However, she said, Smith placed his penis into the mouth of the 13-year-old as she slept.
The trial, which will hear evidence from all seven complainants, their parents and past and present staff of Glenfield College, is expected to take seven days.
