KEY POINTS:
A married teacher has resigned from Putaruru College in the wake of allegations that he had an affair with a 17-year-old pupil.
PE teacher Ryan Emery resigned this month after the college principal Mike Ronke received a complaint in April from the pupil's mother. The South Waikato college spent $7000 from school funds to hire a private investigator to look into the claims.
According to a report in the Waikato Times, the alleged affair started last year when the teenager was in her final year of school.
Emery did not teach the pupil while at the school. She left part way through the year to get a job.
The Times report quoted a source close to the school as saying Emery had described the allegations as "all lies". His wife is apparently standing by him.
Last week the Herald on Sunday revealed that disgraced British teacher Fiona Forster - struck off in England for asking 13-year-old pupils which of them was most likely to be raped, and selling cigarettes to pupils at another school - was teaching at an Auckland school, Southern Cross Campus, after an embarrassing blunder by teaching heads.
The New Zealand Teachers Council said it had inquired into Forster's background before granting her a provisional teaching registration, due to expire in 2010, but British teaching authorities deny it.
Forster is now the subject of a new allegation, and investigation by the council.
Mike Ronke said Emery had resigned from the school on November 5 and had moved out of the "school house". He confirmed a complaint had been laid by the student's mother.
"The complaint about his behaviour was taken to the board. The board employed an independent investigator," Ronke told the Waikato Times.
In his 12 months as principal this was the first complaint of this nature he had dealt with, Ronke reportedly said.
The father of the pupil, who is now 18 and undertaking tertiary study in the Waikato, told the newspaper the entire saga had been "pretty stressful" and he was happy with how Ronke had dealt with the situation.
He was unsure how long the couple had been together before it was broken off.
Emery, in his 30s, did not return Herald on Sunday calls or emails. Family members refused to comment.
Last week on the Old Friends website, Emery said he had lived in Sweden for years before returning to New Zealand to finish a degree in sports and exercise science.
After completing a post-graduate degree in teaching at Waikato University he began teaching PE and health at Putaruru College.
Following calls from the Herald on Sunday, Emery's Old Friends profile was changed.
The Herald on Sunday understands Emery married a PE teacher from a nearby girls' college in 2006.
