The complainant was referred to the Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse Trust and encouraged to take his complaint to the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand.
In December 2015, the Education Council’s Complaints Assessment Committee lay a notice of charge against the teacher, although it did not find the relationship between the complainant and teacher to be “abuse” because it could not objectively be sustained.
The committee referred the matter to the Disciplinary Tribunal.
On August 12, the Disciplinary Tribunal found the respondent to have engaged in serious misconduct and her teacher registration was cancelled.
Names and identifying details have been suppressed and the tribunal’s full decision will be publicly available in September, once an appeal period ends.
In a letter addressed to the complainant, and obtained by Stuff, the tribunal reported concern with “what appears to be a lack of clear recognition or acceptance on the part of the respondent that she transgressed a fundamental professional boundary”.
“The Tribunal wishes to state clearly that her crossing of that fundamental professional boundary with a current student was completely unacceptable whether assessed by today’s standards or those of 1977.”
Andrew hoped that by sharing his story, other male survivors of historical sexual abuse by women would come forward.
“What I did was normalise the chaos. It’s really in this last year that I’ve dealt with these issues in a full way.”
He said the pain never went away and the effects were deep and lasting.
“You carry that through with you through your adulthood.”
The teacher did not respond to requests for comment.