Decision lays bare teacher's sexual relationship with teenage student

Ryan Emery eventually accepted responsibility. Photo / Supplied

It started with a simple text message but led to a married teacher sleeping with a 16-year-old student.

The career-ending choice of Ryan Emery, 35, formerly a teacher at Putaruru College in Waikato, is laid bare in a newly released Teachers' Council decision.

It sets out how he embarked on an 18-month sexual relationship with a student.

The council concealed Emery's identity under a system that strikes off and suspends teachers but protects their identities.

The Herald on Sunday reported on the case when the former physical education teacher was confronted about the relationship in 2008. And after discovering his identity we can now name him.

"I accept that my teacher registration will be cancelled," Emery wrote to the council's disciplinary tribunal.

The letter was effectively a guilty plea to claims he had earlier denied.

The report said the relationship began after a school camp in February 2007.

Emery and the girl attended the camp, after which he asked for her mobile number.

He texted her for a fortnight and they eventually arranged to spend the night together. He gave her alcohol and they later had sex.

The relationship continued through the year - at his home, during school hours and even overnight.

Emery persisted behind his wife's back, and saw the girl after she left school at the end of the second term until mid-2008.

Emery then told the girl his wife was pregnant. The relationship broke down and the teenager went to the school in July 2008 to reveal everything.

Emery denied the relationship and the school was forced to hire a private investigator.

Once the matter became the subject of a formal complaint to the tribunal Emery accepted responsibility.

The report said such relationships were a gross abuse of trust and confidence.

The council found the teacher had tainted the reputation of the teaching profession and ordered Emery's registration to be cancelled.

Putaruru College principal Mike Ronke said the decision was reasonable. He was not concerned about it being public as it showed the school was publicly accountable.

He understood the student involved had gone on to study and was believed to be doing well.

School board chairman Murray Hamilton, a police officer, said Emery "was a nice guy who had made a very bad decision".