A high school teacher who sexually abused one of his students was given the option to resign, rather than face further investigation, a court has heard.
Katrina Munting was a 14-year-old high school student at Hobart's Rose Bay High School when she was sexually abused by teacher Marcus Pollard in 1998. Abuse also occurred in 1999.
The now 66-year-old Pollard was convicted in 2020 of persistent sexual abuse of a young person.
Ms Munting is now suing him and Tasmania's Education Department for damages.
Her husband, Danny Munting, gave evidence during the civil, judge-only trial at the Supreme Court in Hobart on Thursday.
Mr Munting told the court he and Ms Munting had been friends since Ms Munting was in grade 7 and he in grade 9, and that they started their romantic relationship in late 1999.
Mr Munting told the court that in February 2000 Ms Munting made an initial disclosure to him that she had been sexually assaulted by Pollard when she was at school.
"We were a few months into our relationship at that point in time," Mr Munting said.
"As an 18-year-old it was a very confronting conversation … we talked at great length about what I could do and what we needed to do together."
Mr Munting told the court he went to then-Rose Bay High School principal Rod Radford — a man Mr Munting, himself a former Rose Bay High student, knew — and told him Ms Munting had been sexually assaulted by Pollard.
"I went and saw him [Mr Radford] the next day," Mr Munting told the court.
"I remember distinctly the conversation."
He told the court Mr Radford told him the school "had concerns" and that there had been "conversations" about Pollard's behaviour.
He said Mr Radford told him a teacher had been asked to "have a conversation with" Ms Munting, and another teacher "had been asked to have a conversation with Pollard about concerns".
Mr Munting told the court Mr Radford asked him to ask Ms Munting to write a statement that would go to the Education Department.
He said he also told his parents about the disclosure and that his father came with him to a subsequent meeting with Mr Radford and a department grievances officer where they were told the allegations would be put to Pollard.
At another meeting with Mr Radford, Mr Munting told the court, "Radford informed us that it had been put to Pollard and Pollard had been given the option of resigning rather than face any further investigation, which Pollard had chosen to do".
The court heard Pollard was also told he would not teach again.
In emails tendered as evidence, the then-Education Department secretary Martyn Forrest described Pollard's resignation as "an excellent outcome".
Under cross examination, Mr Munting did not agree with the Education Department's barrister, Kate Cuthbertson SC, when she put it to him that the conversations about concerns with Pollard's behaviour were never mentioned during the initial meeting with Mr Radford.
The court has heard Ms Munting's initial disclosure in 2000 did not detail the full extent of the abuse. The court heard she made a full disclosure to police in 2018.
That led to the criminal case against Pollard, during which he pleaded guilty to persistent sexual abuse of a young person and was sentenced to three years' jail.
The court has heard that after Pollard's resignation from his teaching job, he went on to work at the University of Tasmania's science department, where Ms Munting became a student in 2002.
Mr Munting said Ms Munting was "very stressed" while she was at university because of the potential she would come across Pollard, "even though there was a non-contact order … in his contract".
"She voiced often the terror. I know there was a number of times she would see him driving to the university and she would fall apart on those days," Mr Munting told the court.
The trial, before Acting Justice David Porter, continues.
