Evidence was heard of the severe deterioration in relations between a teacher, who was allegedly romantically involved with a student, and her ex-partner, during the second day of a fitness-to-teach inquiry.
The inquiry concerns allegations that the woman, who taught English in a Dublin school, was in a romantic relationship with a Leaving Certificate student during the summer of 2018.
It is further alleged that she and the student exchanged messages on the social media app Snapchat on a daily basis from June 14th to June 20th, 2018, while he was sitting his Leaving Certificate examinations and subsequently until August 14th, while he awaited his results. The teacher denies these allegations.
The director of the Teaching Council also alleges that the teacher had a sexual encounter with the student on a date unknown in early August 2018, to which the teacher has admitted.
RM Block
Under cross-examination by Eoghan Cole SC, for the teacher, her ex-partner alleged that the teacher cut the wires to security cameras at their home so that he could not see the student coming to the property, which he said neighbours told him they saw.
He also said that the teacher damaged the handles of doors in their home, which he reported to the gardaí, and that she set up a fake account on a dating app from which she messaged him. He also said that he considered the Snapchat messages from the teacher to the student as amounting to grooming.
Mr Cole provided evidence of email exchanges between the witness and the teacher from May 2019, involving the payment of bills. The witness made threats that he would put pressure on the Teaching Council and the Board of Management of the school and indicated he would organise a rally outside the school. “You are evil and greedy. What goes around comes around,” he wrote in one email.
The witness responded: “You must remember things were difficult in the house, I was trying to buy her share in the house, there was bitterness and acrimony.”
Mr Cole also put it to him that he had not been consistent regarding the dates he attributed to certain incidents in written statements he provided to the Teaching Council.
The incidents included an alleged conversation between the teacher and her ex-partner in which he alleged that she admitted on the day she returned from a post Leaving Cert results trip organised by the school that she spent that night with the student.
Mr Cole, who repeated the denial of the teacher that this conversation took place, further put it to the witness that his lack of consistency regarding the dates when these events took place was a basis for contending that they did not take place.
The witness replied that the events did take place but that he could not be certain regarding some dates.
Further evidence of the emotional toll of the inquiry became apparent when another former colleague of the teacher at the Dublin school, and who was “quite” close to her, gave evidence.
The witness, along with another colleague who gave evidence on Wednesday, were told in October 2018 by the teacher’s then partner that the teacher was or had been having an affair with the student.
The witness recalled how she and her colleague then phoned the teacher from a car outside the school building.
“We were concerned for [the teacher’s first name]. She answered but she was quite incoherent,” the witness said, and who after trying to compose herself before the panel, was allowed to leave the room for a time, before resuming her evidence.
The chairman, Fergal McCarthy, reassured the witness: “We understand how emotionally charged this is.”
The witness, whose relationship with the teacher was now “over”, further outlined how she and her colleague, after finding out that the teacher had not informed the principal of the sexual encounter with the student in early August 2018, went to the principal with this information.
“We couldn’t sit on the information, we thought we’d get into trouble. We were very naive as regards whether he was still a student in the school,” she said.
The inquiry continues on Friday.
