Cranbrook School council in ongoing crisis talks

The ABC reported on Friday that the allegations relate to a male teacher currently employed at Cranbrook, who allegedly sent multiple graphic emails in 2014 to a former female student that he taught at a Catholic girls school.

The former student was a young adult when the emails were sent, and contained details about looking up girls’ skirts in class, and described sexual fantasies about his students.

In a statement sighted by this masthead, the girls’ school said it first became aware of the emails in 2015 and referred the matter to the NSW Police, the NSW ombudsman, the Association of Independent Schools NSW, and Cranbrook.

“The [school] discharged its legal responsibilities as required at the time,” the college statement read.

The ABC Four Corners program, which aired on Monday, detailed allegations of workplace bullying and abuse at the school, as well as previously reported child abuse royal commission findings relating to Sampson’s response to abuse allegations about a maths teacher at Geelong Grammar in Victoria.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare announced an investigation into the school, requesting his department look into “the issues raised in the media relating to Cranbrook and take any appropriate action”.

Cranbrook’s council held an emergency meeting on Thursday night at which the board communicated its concerns to Sampson. Sampson resigned from his $1 million a year role on Friday morning.

In a message posted on the school’s website on Friday, Cranbrook’s council president Geoff Lovell said the council was “made aware for the first-time of allegations of an extremely concerning past conduct matter involving a current Senior School teacher at Cranbrook”.

He stressed that the allegations do not involve past or present Cranbrook students.

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“The circumstances of the matter and subsequently Mr Sampson’s failure to disclose the matter to the current School Council in the context of this week’s ABC Four Corners broadcast, have led to an irrevocable breakdown of trust between the Headmaster and the School Council,” he wrote.