Jail for abuse of student

A FORMER science teacher has been jailed for sexually abusing a Hobart student during the 1990s, molesting her in the school photography darkroom after months of “slow and steady grooming”.

Marcus James Pollard, 63, pictured, first targeted the Grade 9 girl when he was teaching at Rose Bay High School and she was 15 years old.

The Supreme Court of Tasmania heard on Tuesday Pollard had frequently brushed up against the girl and touched her at school and often chatted to her on the telephone, before taking things further by kissing her in his office.

Chief Justice Alan Blow, while handing down his sentence, said Pollard and the girl continued to talk on the phone and sometimes met in the school photography darkroom, where they would hold each other and kiss.

But Pollard’s touching of the girl became increasingly sexual during those meetings in a “gradual escalation”.

At a school camping trip, the girl went inside Pollard’s tent for a while, where touching and kissing occurred.

In the summer holidays before the girl was due to begin Grade 10, the pair met at their school. Pollard drove the teen to his home in his ute, with the girl lying out of sight.

“It was the complainant, not

Mr Pollard, who ended the sexual relationship,” Chief Justice Blow said.

“She did so as a result of another teacher telling her that it had been noticed that she and Mr Pollard were spending a lot of time together and that was not normal.”

The judge noted the sexual abuse – unlawful sexual acts that occurred on five occasions – had stopped short of sexual intercourse.

“However, there was a sustained course of sexual abuse over several months involving an appalling breach of trust, and months of slow and steady grooming,” he said.

Chief Justice Blow said the victim had suffered terribly due to Pollard’s abuse. “She experienced feelings of shame, isolation and entrapment,” he said.

About a year after the abuse ended, the girl revealed some of what had happened and the teacher was forced to resign.

Pollard, who pleaded guilty to persistent sexual abuse of a young person, was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and had his name placed on the sex offenders register for four years. He will not be eligible for parole until he has served 18 months.