Pupil found on motorway after drinking wine with his teacher

A TEENAGE pupil was found by gardaí on a motorway in a distressed state after a late night incident with a teacher, a Teaching Council inquiry has heard.

The 19-year-old, originally from another European country, was trying to hail a taxi to get to the airport to fly home when gardaí came across him shortly after midnight. Earlier, the student had been drinking alcohol with the teacher – who was his house-master – in the teacher’s on-campus residence.

Hours after the events, which occurred on the night of November 28 and the early hours of November 29, 2016, the student left the country. The teacher was suspended on full pay.

The details emerged in the opening day of a fitness-toteach case, the second ever to come to a Teaching Council disciplinary hearing.

A series of text messages between the teacher and the student on November 29, in which the teacher said he wanted to “fix” things, were read out.

One, from the teacher said: “It was really nice tonight before I f ***** up.”

The exchange ended at about 4pm that day, when the student’s father sent a message stating “No more WhatsApp”.

The case, on foot of a complaint from the principal, is being heard in public – but on an anonymised basis. It resumes next Wednesday.

Outlining the case for the Teaching Council, Remy Farrell SC said the student had come to the house-master’s residence, apparently for the purpose of resolving some difficulties and to receive support.

He said the student appeared “to have become upset and agitated to an extent that he seems to have torn his own clothing”. The student left the house and made his way to the motorway.

Issues

Mr Farrell read a statement from the teacher, which said there had been issues with the student’s application to his studies. The teacher was frustrated about that.

On that evening, the teacher was off duty and was relaxing at home, drinking wine.

After the student arrived, an issue arose over whether the student was taking a drug, Ritalin, which had not been prescribed for him.

The teacher said the student “tore his T-shirt off ” and, in the ensuing period, he said there was “physical contact but nothing inappropriate”. The student got angry and the teacher said they would go to the principal together. He said he regretted the situation reaching that stage. He told the student to “get himself together” and he [the teacher] left. When he returned, at about 10pm, the student was gone.

On the morning of November 29, the principal said that he asked the teacher to desist from contacting the student. The teacher said he had sent messages in an attempt to apologise.

“I wanted to take the blame for him getting drunk to give him a way out of the terrible situation he had put me in.”

Asked about the drink policy in the school, the principal said that while it was deemed appropriate for senior students to have “one or two beers” with staff in the context of a meal out, you would never drink alone with a student.

A garda told the hearing that while there was a smell of alcohol on the student, she would not class him as “being drunk”.

The allegations of professional misconduct centre on the student’s consumption of wine in the teacher’s company, that the teacher left the student in his residence knowing that alcohol was available and that the student was angry or upset, and that the teacher was under the influence of alcohol.

They also centre on his failure to report that the student was absent from his dorm around midnight and his sending of text messages to the student, including messages to retract information that he had provided to the principal and gardaí.