Teaching Council condemned for ignoring police warning about sex offender

The Teaching Council allowed a sex offender to teach despite a police "red stamp" saying he should not have unsupervised access to children.

A damning report by lawyer Katherine Anderson KC, is also highly critical of the council for allowing Timothy Fisher to continuing to teach without a valid practising certificate, and for only striking him off in 2025 despite serious concerns raised about his conduct a decade earlier.

"My impression is that the red stamp issue was put into the too hard basket. This is the opposite of how a regulator focused on student safety should respond," Anderson said.

Fisher was jailed for four years and five months having pleaded guilty to multiple charges including indecently assaulting nine of his students and making over 200 objectionable recordings.

Fisher repeatedly filmed himself carrying out indecent acts near students at a high school where he worked.

Most of the convictions related to incidents in 2024 involving children under 12.

Fisher was allowed to become a teacher in 2011 having received a clear police vet. This is despite him having indecency convictions from 2002, which police were not able to disclose due to the Clean Slate Act, which automatically conceals some criminal convictions after seven years.

"I acknowledge that if in 2011 the Clean Slate Act had allowed the Police to disclose Mr Fisher's 2002 convictions, the Council may have refused Mr Fisher entry to the profession. Once he was through the registration gateway, however, it was not the case that the Council's hands were forever tied," the report states.

It also found that teaching without a practising certificate was not treated as a serious matter by the Teaching Council.

"The council's communications focused on reminders to pay a late application fee and, or how to apply for an extension permitting applicants to teach without a current certificate. This minimised the importance of valid practising certificates to student safety."

Education Minister Erica Stanford said there was significant work ahead to rebuild trust and confidence in the Teaching Council.

Stanford said she had issued a clear letter of expectations requiring the Council to implement the recommendations of recent reviews and report regularly on its progress.

Teaching Council chair Patrick Walsh said it accepted the damning King's Counsel report into the Teaching Council's handling of the Timothy Fisher case.

"It is a report that is very confronting and distressing to read and when I first received it I felt sick to my stomach because parents have a legitimate expectation that their children are going to be safe in the care of teachers, so it's an egregious breach of trust when teachers do harm children."

Speaking to Midday Report, Patrick Walsh said the organisation apologised whole-heartedly to the victims, parents and the profession itself given most teachers were professional and competent.

Asked how the Teaching Council could have ignored a warning from police that Fisher not have unsupervised access to children, Walsh said someone should have picked up the phone to police or asked Timothy Fisher to come in and explain.

Walsh said since the report the council had put an action plan in place.

"Some of those things will include that all teachers have to have a current practising certificate, that we are more stringent in teachers being fit to teach and of good character.

"We're in the process of employing more investigators so that when a complaint is laid, we have people going into the field to check these teachers out."