A few of the photos confirmed fathers or grandfathers engaged having sexual activity or participating in different sexual exercise with their daughters or teenage women.
Now, following an investigation and a listening to by which Cassidy opted to not flip as much as, the Lecturers’ Disciplinary Tribunal has cancelled his instructing licence.
“…Of serious concern are the photographs ostensibly involving fathers or grandfathers engaged in sexual activity or different sexual exercise with their daughters or teenaged women,” the tribunal mentioned in a discovering launched immediately.
“For anybody, not to mention a instructor chargeable for instructing and conducting themselves professionally round younger ladies, that is troubling.
“In an identical vein, the screenshots of messages containing extraordinarily disturbing content material about sexual exercise with younger relations casts a regarding mild on Mr Cassidy’s function as knowledgeable member of a college group.”
In line with the ruling Cassidy was issued a laptop computer by Ōtorohanga Faculty in 2017.
Simply over a 12 months later the varsity’s IT technician observed some “uncommon” web exercise from somebody utilizing Cassidy’s person profile and was involved sufficient to authorise two folks to observe his system.
In November 2018 they remotely recorded Cassidy’s display for about 40 minutes as he logged into an internet chatroom below the pseudonym “Adam” and talked to 2 ladies who appeared to have been within the Philippines.
“Whyt [sic] am I continually on warmth for you?” one message he wrote reads.
Cassidy refers to performing some work then writes “Hope u chatting with some guys hon” then “Your homework immediately is to speak to three guys” then “And replica paste me dialog”.
The next day Cassidy was despatched screenshots of a sexualised dialog and a unadorned {photograph} of the person one of many ladies is chatting with.
The varsity’s principal then confiscated Cassidy’s laptop computer, positioned him on discretionary depart and handed the laptop computer over to police.
The Complaints Evaluation Committee (CAC) of the Lecturers’ Disciplinary Tribunal obtained a voluntary endeavor from Cassidy to not train in 2018 and commenced an investigation as soon as the police suggested they’d not pursue legal costs.
It’s not clear from the choice why they selected to not pursue costs.
The CAC then obtained a replica of the recordsdata taken from Cassidy’s laptop and gave it to a forensic knowledgeable who analysed them.
‘A sufferer of bullying’
Cassidy then advised the Sunday Star-Occasions in 2019 that the investigation amounted to bullying, and harassment and was the end result of a vendetta by a number of colleagues in opposition to him.
“…There’s a tradition within the college which is a tradition of criticism. I completely imagine I’m the sufferer of bullying,” he advised the paper in 2019.
“Clearly my status has actually been broken past restore. It’s shattered.”
By the use of rationalization in emailed conversations with the tribunal, Cassidy acknowledged speaking to many ladies on-line in his seek for a “life associate.”
“Authorized grownup web sites have been used to discover a life associate. I’ve by no means deliberately engaged in something unlawful. Every part was completed in a non-public respecting [sic] method,” he mentioned.
He went on to say that he has no “illegal sexual curiosity in kids” and no private curiosity in pornography.
Cassidy claimed that others advised him their fantasies as a “non-public matter” and that: “A variety of conversations that have been despatched to me have been weird and loopy, however they weren’t mine. I additionally didn’t select what was despatched to me by others. I had no management over what was despatched.”
He claimed that he accessed the websites on his private units and so they have been then mechanically uploaded to the varsity’s server in error.
The tribunal dismissed this declare and mentioned it was happy the fabric he’d accessed originated from his school-issued laptop computer.
“We discover that Mr Cassidy was in understanding possession of inappropriate photos, and that the content material of the conversations captured when he was below surveillance was inappropriate on a school-issued laptop computer and in class hours,” their discovering reads.
“An goal member of the general public wouldn’t contemplate participating in sexualised chat and viewing a nude {photograph} despatched inside the context of a sexual dialog, throughout college hours on a college system, is acceptable behaviour for a instructor.
“The character of the fabric accessed through Mr Cassidy’s college person profile makes Mr Cassidy’s claims of passivity and an absence of curiosity in pornography unbelievable.”
The tribunal opted to cancel the now-retired Cassidy’s instructing licence and ordered he pay $12,000 in authorized prices.
Police have been approached for remark.
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based mostly in Manawatū protecting courts and justice points with an curiosity in tribunals. He has been a journalist for almost a decade and has labored for NZME since 2022.
