A teacher has been fired after a disciplinary hearing was told he made his wife and a schoolgirl pregnant simultaneously.
The man paid for the girl to have an abortion when she was
five months pregnant, a Western Cape education department official told the
arbitrator who chaired the misconduct hearing.
Arthi Singh-Bhoopchand also heard that at one stage the
schoolgirl's father withdrew his complaint against the teacher, named in the
finding only as H Jabaar, in return for a payment.
Jabaar did not attend the disciplinary hearing, which
considered the former schoolgirl's WhatsApp exchanges with the Cape Town
teacher and what Singh-Bhoopchand called “photographs of them together in
compromising circumstances”.
The pupil, who was a minor at the time she had the
relationship with Jabaar in 2019, also did not attend the Zoom hearing.
Lauren Randall, an assistant director in the Western Cape
education department, testified at the Education Labour Relations Council
hearing that in November 2019 the girl told the principal of Mount View
High School in Hanover Park that Jabaar
had made her pregnant and paid for her abortion two months earlier.
Shortly after an investigation began, said Randall, the
girl's father withdrew the complaint, explaining that Jabaar had agreed to
marry his daughter.
When the teacher reneged on the plan, the complaint was
reinstated, only to be withdrawn for a second time when the payment was
negotiated between the families of Jabaar and the schoolgirl.
However, Randall said the department accepted legal advice
that the investigation should continue.
Jason Fry, the deputy director: advisory services in the
education department, said he and Randall interviewed the girl and her father
together.
“He noticed that [the father] was doing all the talking and
that the learner appeared reluctant to speak in front of her father,”
Singh-Bhoopchand said in her finding.
After Fry asked the father to leave the room, the girl told
them everything. But when the official spoke to the father afterwards, he told
them he wanted to withdraw the complaint and ensure his daughter married Jabaar
for the sake of “family honour”.
Fry said he also confronted Jabaar with evidence provided
by the girl and his response was that “it was all true. He said that he had
reneged on his agreement to marry the learner because he was already married
and that his wife was pregnant.”
Singh-Bhoopchand said: “Mr Fry concluded his testimony by
saying that he noted that the learner spoke freely when her father was not in the
room and that her fate appeared to be controlled by her father.”
She added: “Their version is further supported by
documentary evidence. The individuals in compromising circumstances in the
photographs ... were identified as being the learner and the employee.
“The pictures are not reflective of an educator/learner
relationship but rather of two individuals involved in a physical relationship.
“The content of the WhatsApp communications between the
learner and the employee confirm that the learner was indeed pregnant and the
conversation around marriage between the two further cements the version of the
witnesses.
“The content of the WhatsApp messages also supports the
version that the employee was trying to protect his job by manipulating the
learner and her family into withdrawing the complaint. It further explains the
absence of the learner.”
After finding Jabaar guilty, she dismissed him from the job
he has since been taken at a different Western Cape school and said his
teaching certificate would be revoked.
TimesLIVE
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