It’s meant to be one of our most trusted professions – however these teachers shattered that trust and ended up in front of court.
However these are some teachers across Queensland who shattered that trust and ended up in front of court.
Aspiring teacher admits rape
A former NRL prospect and aspiring teacher wept in the court dock as he was sentenced in February to jail for raping a woman on a Gold Coast beach.
Tom Vickery was out drinking with friends in Coolangatta on March 20, 2021 when he ran into a woman he knew from school at a pub.
Southport District Court was told the now-22-year-old and his victim were heavily intoxicated by the time they left the venue for a nearby beach.
Crown prosecutor Kelli Lemass said the pair started having consensual sex, during which the woman began blacking out and briefly lost consciousness.
She said the woman felt Vickery try to put his penis in her anus and told him not to.
The court was told Vickery’s attempts became increasingly forceful and he soon began anally raping the woman, despite her yelling at him to stop.
The Arizona Department of Public Safety says Donald Brown sent an email to the “Trumped Store” in Show Low, threatening to open fire on the store and kill Arizona State Sen. Wendy Rogers.
Ms Lemass said the woman tried unsuccessfully to escape and began crying from the pain.
Her tears prompted Vickery to stop the assault after about 30 seconds and ask the woman, “Are you crying?”.
The court was told the victim quickly got up and grabbed her bag before running from the beach.
She reported the rape to her friends the next day and later to her doctor and police.
Vickery cried quietly at various points during the proceedings, as did several of his friends and family members lining the courtroom gallery.
Defence barrister Bernard Reilly said the support was just one sign the rape was an “aberration” for his high-achieving client.
He said Vickery excelled at sport throughout his schooling, and spent eight months training in the Melbourne Storm U20s squad before Covid forced him to return to Queensland.
Mr Reilly said Vickery would no longer be able to pursue his dream of becoming a teacher.
Judge Deborah Holliday said Vickery’s clean criminal history, strong work ethic, and rehabilitation efforts suggested he was unlikely to reoffend.
Vickery pleaded guilty to one count of rape.
He was sentenced to four years’ jail, suspended after nine months in custody.
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Mother ‘gutted’ over teacher’s punishment
A mother sat quietly in court and watched in May as the teacher who molested her young son, as well as six other boys, was told he would only have to spend another three months in jail.
Her young son still has nightmares about the vile assault.
“I actually thought I was going to throw up,” the woman, who cannot legally be identified, said.
“It’s affected his entire life in that he struggles to trust teachers.”
Her shock and anger was mirrored by other victim’s family members in Mackay District Court who watched as Brent Sean McKee learned his fate.
McKee, then 28, had been working as a music teacher when he molested seven boys aged eight to 12 years old between January and December 2020 at Sarina.
Brent Sean McKee.
The majority involved touching the boys outside their clothing on their buttocks but there was one instance of putting his hands inside the shorts of one of the boys.
The court heard McKee would position himself close to the boys and then rub them.
Crown Prosecutor Matthew Sutton said the offending was “really heinous acts upon children”.
When police searched his home officers found vile images of videos of young boys engaged in penetrative and non-penetrative sex acts with men.
McKee, now 30, pleaded guilty to 15 counts of indecent treatment of children and one count of possessing child exploitation material.
Barrister Scott McLennan said it was “accepted that offending by a teacher towards the victims attracts a strong emotional response from the community”.
The court heard McKee had voluntarily engaged in psychiatric and psychological help and had been treated for about 12 months.
Judge Michael Burnett accepted McKee had been deemed as having good prospects of rehabilitation, thereby diminishing the risk of further offending.
McKee was jailed for two years and 10 months to be released on two years’ probation after serving nine months in total.
He will walk free in August and the remaining jail term will hang over his head for four years.
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Sick ‘girlfriend’ game lands teacher in prison
A former Central Queensland high school teacher was in November 2022 jailed for 10 offences where he procured his young daughter to engage in sexual acts.
Maroochydore District Court heard how the teacher came to care for the daughter and offended against her when she was between six to nine years old.
Crown prosecutor Samantha O’Rourke said the conduct began when the father told his daughter he “needed a girlfriend” and kissed her before they had a bath where games were played and sex acts were performed.
A former high school chorus teacher will spend the next three years in prison and 17 on probation under sex offender conditions after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting several underage students.
The court heard the father also forced his daughter to perform other acts on him during a game of “mummy and baby” and that the offending had taken place over a period of three years.
Ms O’Rourke said the father came forward to police on August 11, 2021, at the Coolum station and admitted to offending against his daughter.
Judge Paul Smith said the father’s actions would have had a clear impact on his daughter.
Defence barrister Mark Dixon told the court when the teacher found out about his biological daughter, his seven-year relationship ended.
Mr Dixon said the teacher was an individual who since his younger years had struggled with mental health issues, cannabis and methamphetamine use and had been diagnosed with a schizotypal personality disorder.
Judge Smith sentenced him to three years’ prison suspended after eight months. He will be released under the supervision of a corrective services officer for three years.
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Deportation for teacher after jail
A former Sunshine Coast private school teacher who videoed children at a pool and groomed a 13-year-old has been described as having an “entrenched interest” in children.
Dean Carelse was sentenced to two years in prison in April 2022 after he pleaded guilty to 19 charges including 14 counts of indecently treating a child under 16 as a carer.
Maroochydore District Court heard the now 41-year-old videoed children’s genitalia at a pool in November 28, 2019. The videos were found on covert apps on his phone.
Judge Glen Cash said Carelse also groomed a 13-year-old between January 1, 2020 and February 15, 2021.
Mr Cash said Carelse’s offending didn’t include intimate touching, however, was “demonstrous of his sexual interest in the child”.
Mr Cash said Carelse also recorded the child on an occasion when they were alone. The court heard Carelse stole sporting equipment that he gave to the child.
Police found a “substantial” amount of child-exploitation material on two phones in Carelse’s possession on March 20, 2021.
The material included 2026 images and 486 videos of pre-pubescent children under the age of 13 and included the 14 videos recorded by Carelse at the swimming pool.
Crown prosecutor Greg Cummings said the child exploitation material offence occurred after Carelse had videoed the children and groomed the child.
Barrister Ben Power said Carelse was sincerely remorseful for his behaviour and understood it was a “gross” breach of trust.
The court heard Carelse would be deported to South Africa upon his release from prison.
Judge Glen Cash said a two-year prison sentence suspended after 271 days reflected the criminality of the offending.
His 271 days of pre-sentence custody was declared as time already served.
The court heard Carelse had no criminal history.
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Teacher in Insta groom
A high schoolteacher who posed as a 17-year-old on Instagram messaged 14 and 15-year-old girls and was “seeking sexual and explicit nude photos”.
Kerrin Joel Raynor, 28, pleaded guilty in February 2022 to three counts of grooming a child under the age of 16 with an intent to expose to indecent matter.
Crown prosecutor Rana Aldas said Raynor was a teacher at a high school and communicated with his victims via Instagram over a nine-month period in 2019 and 2020.
“His conduct to all three complainants was very similar, he started off with flirtatious messages and compliments, that then progressed to more sexual and explicit communication,” Ms Aldas said.
Raynor messaged one of his victims on Instagram and described her as “cute, hot and beautiful” and asked for photos containing her “p—y, a– and breasts” before asking if she was a virgin.
If you can’t trust a teacher and a deputy with your child, who can you trust? It’s a disgusting dose of reality out after someone gets sentenced to 100 years in prison.
Another victim also received messages from Raynor that were of a “flirtatious nature”.
Ms Aldas said Raynor would write long paragraphs describing scenarios such as “bending the defendant over and pulling her hair”.
Ms Aldas said the offending came to a stop when the victim confronted the fake Instagram account and asked him to prove who he was.
Barrister Harvey Walters said his client engaged in the offending behaviour due to circumstances in his life and was suffering from anxiety and depression and viewed himself as sexually unappealing.
Judge John Coker said Raynor breached the trust of his victims and said the offending was serious, however, he accepted that Raynor showed genuine remorse.
Raynor was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment, wholly suspended for an operational period of three years.
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Ex-teacher jailed for molesting children
A former teacher who preyed on students, openly molesting young girls in front of their classmates, was jailed in February 2022.
John Vincent Lewis, 79, pleaded guilty in Hervey Bay District Court to five counts of indecent dealing in relation to three women who were taught by him when they were aged 9-10 years.
He had previously served time in jail for similar offences on three occasions including in 1986, 2017 and 2019.
The court adjourned overnight as Judge Suzanne Sheridan considered where the offending fitted in terms of the previous sentences.
John Vincent Lewis (right) with his lawyer outside Hervey Bay District Court.
Lewis’ defence barrister argued against jail time on the principle of totality and told the court of Lewis’ ongoing health issues.
However Judge Sheridan determined that while those health issues along with the poor health of his wife and the time he had already spent in custody for similar offending from the same period were mitigating factors, it was not enough to prevent him from being required to serve time in actual custody.
She said his actions against the three victims were a gross breach of trust on vulnerable young girls.
Lewis was sentenced to 18 months in prison to be suspended after three months.
The three women brought his total number of victims to 20, the Hervey Bay District Court heard.
The court heard how Lewis had molested the girls in front of other children, touching their breasts and genitalia.
A victim, who read her victim impact statement to the court, told of how Lewis “smirked and licked his lips” when she entered his classroom.
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Ex-teacher jailed for online abuse
An elderly, retired mathematics teacher who a court heard had collected more than 678,000 child abuse images and who was happy to exploit the “sad reality” of poverty in the Philippines by paying for the live streamed sexual abuse of children will spend his twilight years in jail.
In Cairns in February 2022 Justice Jim Henry concluded the sentence of 77-year-old Russell Owen Lorback, of Innisfail, who in December 2021 pleaded guilty to seven child abuse offences, including one count of persistent sexual abuse of a child outside Australia, and possessing child exploitation material.
The volume of child abuse material in Mr Lorback’s possession – some 678,581 files – was described to the court as being on “a truly massive scale”, though Justice Henry accepted there would have been some duplication among the collection.
Russell Owen Lorback.
The court heard Lorback’s principal offending included chatting with a number of children or their family members in the Philippines, “trawling for sexual imagery from multiple children”, as Justice Henry described it.
He said Lorback would send money in exchange for pictures, videos, and shows.
Over the course of two years, Lorback was able to get one child to perform a number of sexually explicit live shows, which he recorded online.
A psychologist’s report tendered to the court detailed how Lorback had two marriages, with the second one eventually foundering when his wife wished to return to Australia and he wanted to continue to teach in PNG.
After losing his teaching job in PNG, Lorback retired to the Sunshine Coast, before he relocated to Innisfail in 2005.
Lorback was sentenced to six years imprisonment.
He will be eligible for parole after serving three years.
FULL REPORT
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