VICE-PRINCIPAL IN STORM OVER ‘NAKED SELFIES’
Pupils at school ‘shared compromising pictures of male teacher’
A LEADING Catholic secondary school has been rocked after naked ‘selfies’ of its deputy principal were circulated among his pupils on social media.
Parents have expressed their concern that children were able to see a number of nude images the teacher appears to have taken of himself.
It is not clear how the naked photos were leaked online, although there is no suggestion the €70,000-a-year deputy principal was responsible for doing so.
However, the circulation of the images – which the Irish Daily Mail has chosen not to reproduce – highlights the growing impact social media and ‘sexting’
can have if the images involved are leaked.
When asked about the photos yesterday morning, the deputy principal declined to comment on the matter.
Instead, he said all enquiries should be directed to his boss, the school principal.
‘I shouldn’t be talking to you about this,’ the deputy principal said, adding: ‘You might have to ring back and talk to the principal on this one.’
Before the phone conversation ended, he added: ‘This is... this is scandalous, sorry, and I’ll say no more.’
The principal later told the Irish Daily Mail that the school has an appropriate mobile phone usage policy, but that it ‘had not received a single complaint’ regarding inappropriate mobile phone usage by students.
He added: ‘If you have evidence of any breach of our policy by a student, please bring it to our attention so that we may deal with it in accordance with our policy.
‘The Parental Complaints Procedure is the correct manner in which any concern may be brought to the attention of the school.’
A number of students at the school, which is in the east of the country, have now told their parents about the pictures – sparking an outraged reaction from some of them.
Last night, a parent of one pupil told the Mail: ‘To say that we were shocked when our child came home and told us about the photos would be an understatement. ‘We are frankly disgusted. ‘What happens between two consenting adults is one thing, but for a deputy principal to take such a risk in this day and age is just plain stupid.
‘We all make mistakes, but when you are in such a senior position in a secondary school, these are the sort of mistakes you are not supposed to be making.’
The parent added: ‘You do have to wonder what example this sets our children when gardaí warn about this kind of thing all the time.
‘There are inherent dangers of children using their mobiles and one of them is exchanging naked pictures of themselves.’
Another parent, who has seen the pictures at the centre of the storm, said last night: ‘I feel sorry for the man because of the position he is in. He is entitled to a private life.
‘However, when you are in a responsible position such as the one he is in, you have a duty of care.
‘I think this whole matter compromises him now and he needs to consider his position. I am not happy about what has happened and I know other parents are also not happy.’
The parent added: ‘While I have heard these pictures have been shared on social media, a number of the pupils are reluctant to do anything with them other than show them to other pupils.
‘They don’t want to have on their phone, or anybody else’s phone that might get confiscated, any record that they forwarded what is essentially pornography.’
The school’s code of conduct contains a clause which clearly states that it exists to encourage staff and students to be self-disciplined, and that they should at all times take full responsibility for their actions.
It further states the staff who run the school are responsible for what is considered to be acceptable behaviour at the school.
The Department of Education yesterday said it could not comment in relation to matters about individual teachers.
However, it said that the Teaching Council has a code of conduct which sets out standards of professional knowledge, skill, competence and conduct which are expected of registered teachers.’
The Teaching Council code defines ‘professional misconduct’ as ‘disgraceful or dishonourable conduct either in the course of the registered teacher’s profession or otherwise than in the course of the registered teacher’s profession if the conduct is of such a serious nature as would bring the profession of teaching into disrepute’.
It adds that teachers should ‘uphold the reputation and standing of the profession’.
The latest incident is all the more alarming given the rise of incidents of so-called ‘sextortion’ in recent years, with tens of thousands of people – some of them secondary school pupils – at risk of being blackmailed by criminal gangs over naked images shared online.
Although many young Irish school children have been targeted, sextortion victims are more usually men in their late teens and twenties who are lured into letting themselves be filmed on webcams carrying out sex acts.
The gangs then threaten to share the footage with the victim’s friends and family unless they are paid hundreds or thousands of euro.
‘What example does this set?’
DIGITAL photographs of a naked male teacher have been circulating among children, and their parents, of a school in the southeast. While teachers are obliged not to do anything that brings their school into disrepute, there is no law against taking nude selfies to share with a partner, and we do not know how this particular photo made its way into the public domain.
For the teacher, it must be excruciatingly embarrassing, and many parents are deeply shocked and angered by it, as you would understand.
What we are left with is a cautionary tale about modern life. It is incumbent on all to make sure that they do nothing online they would not do in public, because of the ease with which compromising material can widely be shared.
Hopefully, this will make children think twice about the dangers of so-called sexting, but it must serve as a warning to adults too. What might seem racy and fun is best explored without a camera lens trained on it if you want to avoid the inevitable consequences.