Teacher ‘in sex acts’
Student affair admitted to wife, hearing told
THE wife of a teacher who allegedly engaged in sex acts with a teenage student has given evidence against her husband who could be stripped of his teaching licence.
Daniel Zampatti’s wife gave evidence at a misconduct hearing yesterday.
It is alleged Mr Zampatti engaged in sex acts and swapped dozens of “intimate”, late-night messages during an affair with a teenage student.
She said Mr Zampatti — who’s accused of “touching” and sharing a bed with the 17-year-old girl — admitted the affair to her.
Mr Zampatti allegedly kissed the girl a number of times, including in his car and a hotel pool, between July and October last year.
The student said in a submission to the Victorian Institute of Teaching hearing that she was “shocked” by their first kiss. She denied that they had sex but said they performed sexual acts during a hotel stay.
“That being, the student touched Mr Zampatti and he touched the student,” solicitor Angela Barac said yesterday.
“There is evidence that they stayed in the same room and slept in the same bed that night.”
News Corp is legally prevented from publishing the names of the student, school and witnesses, as well as other details of the hearing.
But phone records show Mr Zampatti and the girl swapped about 400 messages, including more than 100 after midnight, at the time the affair kicked off.
Mr Zampatti’s wife — who also works at the Victorian school — confronted her husband after becoming “suspicious” of his relationship with the student.
She said she “felt something in my guts” when she saw the pair sitting close to each other one night.
“The way they looked up at me, with the expressions on their faces, they looked a bit guilty of something,” she said yesterday.
The student’s mother told the hearing that she had “trusted” Mr Zampatti.
He had tutored and taught the girl for 10 years.
The institute is pushing to have Mr Zampatti’s teaching registration cancelled. It suspended his registration in January after he was deemed an “unacceptable risk of harm to children in Victoria”.
Mr Zampatti did not attend the hearing.