‘PEEPING TOM’ AT COLLEGE
Lecturer was told: stay out of student toilets
A COLLEGE lecturer was investigated for allegedly drilling holes in the walls of student toilet cubicle over a period of several years, a previously unpublished Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) internal report reveals.
The report – released under the Freedom of Information Act – publishes the testimony of other staff and building contractors, who became aware of the issue and raised it with management.
One of the men interviewed for the report labelled the lecturer – who still works at the third level institution – a ‘Peeping Tom’.
However, the report did not determine the lecturer had drilled the holes, or to have looked through them, but it contained testimony from people who interacted with him in student toilets on a couple of occasions that this could have happened.
No disciplinary action was taken against the lecturer on foot of the report, however, and he returned to work after promising to behave appropriately and stay away from the student toilets.
An internal investigation was launched following complaints about the lecturer’s behaviour from a number of people working at the college.
The official probe was commenced
‘He was kneeling down, facing the partition’
by the then president of GMIT, Marion Coy, a close ally of Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who chairs Fine Gael’s quasi-independent think-tank the Collins Institute.
Dr Coy is currently in the process of finalising a review of the party’s general election campaign earlier this year, which resulted in the loss of 26 Dáil seats.
The GMIT investigation began after a maintenance worker witnessed what he believed was inappropriate behaviour in a student toilet on the campus in April 2008.
In a statement that formed part of the report, the worker said he was washing his hands when he saw the lecturer come into the toilet and enter the middle of three cubicles.
‘Three lads came in and one went into a cubicle... I heard [the lecturer] rustling about on the floor and I looked down and saw him facing towards the partition and kneeling down,’ said the witness.
‘I went into a cubicle and saw his shadow on the ground. I looked into the hole and [the lecturer] was staring out.
‘I then banged on the middle door and told him to come out. [He] did not come out for about 10 minutes. When he did, he walked past [my colleague] and me, now outside, without saying a word.
‘I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that [the lecturer] was a “Peeping Tom”.’
Two senior members of college management were appointed by Dr Coy to ‘investigate allegations of gross misconduct’.
Following the conclusion of the investigation, no disciplinary action was taken. Instead, the report was externally reviewed. The results of the external review were not released in the FOI.
Subsequently, at a meeting in January 2009 between Dr Coy, the lecturer and TUI union representation, the lecturer undertook to behave professionally and confine himself to using the staff toilets.
At that meeting, the union acknowledged ‘the confidential and sensitive manner in which the institute dealt with the case’.
Dr Coy ‘stressed the need for prudence in behaviour’ upon the lecturer’s return to work at the institute, according to the report.
A Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology spokesman declined to comment.