Teacher died while facing sex charges

An Auckland primary and intermediate teacher died suddenly while facing charges alleging he sexually violated a pupil at a school where he was principal.

A second person has also told police that the teacher committed sexual offences against him.

An order suppressing Colin Salisbury-Smith's name was lifted last month after an application by the Herald.

When he died, Mr Salisbury-Smith, 56, was sharing a house with a 19-year-old male former pupil of the school where he was teaching.

Police are satisfied there were no suspicious circumstances related to his death and have referred the case to the coroner.

He faced five charges relating to a complaint by a former pupil of Brookby School, on Auckland's rural fringe southeast of the city. The pupil alleges he was molested during 1995 when Mr Salisbury-Smith was the principal and he was aged 10 and 11.

The most serious charges carried maximum penalties of 20 years' jail.

Mr Salisbury-Smith died on May 16 after a court appearance on the charges. On that day he had learned that a second person had made allegations to police.

The second man alleges he was abused when aged about 12 by Mr Salisbury-Smith, who was his teacher at Hiona Intermediate, Masterton, during the 1970s. Those close to Mr Salisbury-Smith said he was dumbfounded and distraught.

He was a popular figure at schools where he taught and in the social circles in which he mixed. He ran the Miss Counties-Manukau beauty pageant from 1995-2000 and was a part-time actor who appeared in Shortland Street and in the film The Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior.

He was teaching at a school in South Auckland until suspended when charged by police 12 days before his death. The school has not told pupils that he faced charges.

Police had earlier unsuccessfully asked the court to lift name suppression because of the prospect there might be other complainants.

The principal said there was no intention to inform pupils of the charges even though name suppression had been lifted.

"We would certainly not wish to do that. It's traumatic for the staff. The staff were devastated ... Their responses were ones we just could not predict. We used the [Education Ministry's] Critical Incident Team to support staff as much as [students]."

"My feeling is that they would not want [pupils told of the charges] as it would open the whole issue up again."

He said pupils were informed at the time that Mr Salisbury-Smith had died and were offered counselling but no comment was made about the circumstances.

The complainant in the case before the court told the Weekend Herald that Mr Salisbury-Smith's death left him feeling "a little bit mad, because he got out of it so easy".

- additional reporting, John Andrews