Hide withdraws tennis ball claims against minister

Rodney Hide (left) and David Benson-Pope. File pictures

ACT leader Rodney Hide today withdrew allegations against Associate Education Minister David Benson-Pope of assaulting pupils when he was a teacher at Dunedin's Bayfield High School.

Mr Hide and National MP Judith Collins yesterday asked Mr Benson-Pope in Parliament whether he ever tied boys' hands together and jammed tennis balls in their mouths, and whether he once smacked a boy with the back of his hand and made the pupil's nose bleed.

This morning Mr Hide said: "He got up in Parliament and said it didn't happen and I accept that."

He said he talked to the students who made the claims last night and they were sticking by their story but Mr Hide accepted Mr Benson-Pope's answers.

Mr Hide denied he was back-tracking.

"I didn't put these as allegations, I put these as questions," he told National Radio today.

Mr Benson-Pope replied in Parliament yesterday by saying: "I have not been guilty of, or involved in, any inappropriate behaviour in my 24 years as a secondary school teacher. Nor am I aware of any complaint of any kind."

Mr Hide said today he was required by Parliament to accept Mr Benson-Pope's word and he did so.

"I accept that he has rejected my questions and therefore the claims are wrong."

He defended his right in asking the questions saying he had initially been approached by one of the pupils in 2000 and again at the beginning of this year with more detail which he followed up by meeting in person those making the claims.

"I checked them out, I talked to more than one student and I also went to a lawyer and got a lawyer's advice," he said.

"And then the question is, what does one do with this?"

In the past the Government had treated ACT in "very bad faith" when they raised concerns, Mr Hide said.

"I thought the best way was to put it out in the open and ask the question and allow the minister to reject it."

Mr Hide said his lawyer told him only one of the student's complaints was worth lodging with police but the student declined to take action.

Former principal Bruce Leadbetter, who worked with Mr Benson-Pope at Bayfield High School for 15 years, said yesterday the associate education minister had a "no nonsense" exterior but underneath he was a "cuddly bear".

Mr Leadbetter said the questions in Parliament were "bizarre".

He had never heard any complaints about that sort of behaviour about Mr Benson-Pope in all the time they had worked together.

Mr Benson-Pope left Bayfield to enter Parliament in 1999.

"You only have to watch him with his own children to see what he is like. He has a gruff exterior but that hides a softness," Mr Leadbetter said.

- NZPA