QLD: Teacher gets suspended sentence over student affair

AAP General News (Australia)
04-19-1999
QLD: Teacher gets suspended sentence over student affair

By Suzanne Klotz

BRISBANE, April 19 AAP - A teacher who had a sexual affair with an under-age former pupil
while his wife was pregnant, avoided jail after pleading guilty in Brisbane today.

The Brisbane District Court had heard the 15-year-old girl initiated the affair and had
removed her skirt to show the teacher she was wearing a g-string.

Bradley Stephen Douglas, 32, unemployed, of Ipswich, west of Brisbane, pleaded guilty to
three counts of unlawful carnal knowledge with a girl under the age of 16 years, between
January 30, 1996 and March 22, 1996.

Douglas was the Health and Physical Education teacher at the Rosewood State High school,
west of Ipswich.

The girl was his student until she left to study at TAFE at the end of 1995.

The affair began after she dropped around to the school to say goodbye and he gave her his
phone number.

Defence counsel Tony Rafter said the girl was the one who made the phone calls in all three
contacts which led to sex either at his place or her parents' home.

Mr Rafter said the girl had worn a g-string to the first meeting and she was the one who
removed her skirt to reveal it to him.

He said the teenager had admitted that all the girls at the school "wanted to have sex with
Mr Douglas and why did he have to be married?".

She wrote in a letter to a friend that having sex with her former teacher was a "dream come
true".

The offence came to light when a Canadian exchange teacher who had swapped schools with
Douglas, heard gossip about his relationships with students and contacted Douglas's wife in
Canada, because he was worried for his own students there.

Douglas's wife, who had given birth to a son in April 1996, had been suspicious of her
husband and took the complaint to the Criminal Justice Commission.

Douglas has not worked since being dismissed from the Education Department last year over
his relationship with two 16-year-olds from a southern Brisbane high school.

Judge Philip Nase told Douglas he had shown complete lack of judgment in taking advantage
of the situation to sexually exploit the 15-year-old.

He sentenced him to 12 months' jail, fully suspended for 18 months.

AAP smk/it

KEYWORD: DOUGLAS

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