Teacher sent suggestive Tumblr messages to student

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A teacher who sent a 16-year-old student suggestive messages on social media, despite the student's attempts to stop him, has been deregistered.

The girl eventually told the teacher to "stop sulking and be there for his children".

The teacher was working at a high school in 2012 when he became fixated on the girl and sought her out on a social website, a Teacher's Council Disciplinary Tribunal decision said.

He sent her messages, such as: "I couldn't sleep on the first night [of a school trip] because I was hoping you would sneak into my room.

"All I wanted on our trip was to be beside you the whole time, I was always trying to be close to you without overdoing it," he wrote.

In October 2012, he sent her a video of him singing the song Hallelujah and playing the ukulele, which he had made for his wife.

The student posted the video on Tumblr, saying he should not have sent it, and that he needed to stop sulking and be there for his children.

She added that whether he loved his wife or not, a 16-year-old should not have to tell him that.

The teacher admitted to his principal that he had engaged in inappropriate contact with a student, and was instructed not to contact her again, but within weeks he breached this undertaking.

The teacher said he was suffering from depression at the time. He was censured and deregistered by the tribunal.

In other decisions released today, three other teachers have been disciplined for inappropriate sexual behaviour.

A teacher who viewed pornography on his school laptop, including websites that showed images of bestiality and abuse of young women, was found out after two female students discovered his internet history and reported it to the principal.

The teacher resigned following a disciplinary process. He told the school he accessed the material at home while drunk.

The tribunal agreed to a censure, but allowed him to continue to be registered.

In another case, a former teacher was convicted last year of sexual violation of a 17-year-old boy and was sentenced to three years and one month in prison.

The offending occurred when the man asked the boy to come to his home for a "photographic shoot".

At the time he was not registered or working as a teacher but had applied for a limited authority to teach. He was censured.

Meanwhile, a female teacher who had a relationship with a 19-year-old student has been censured and deregistered.

The student had re-enrolled at school to gain enough credits to apply for teacher training, and the tribunal said her status at the school was "ambiguous" and she regularly associated with teachers.

The relationship had started after the student first left school in 2010, but continued in secret after she re-enrolled, including having sex at the school.