{"id":444017,"date":"2026-01-29T00:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/444017\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T00:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:25:11","slug":"deputy-principal-at-catholic-school-stood-down-over-de-facto-relationship-inquiry-told","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/444017\/","title":{"rendered":"Deputy principal at Catholic school stood down over de facto relationship, inquiry told"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former deputy principal at a Tasmanian Catholic School has told a parliamentary inquiry he was “treated as though morally compromised” and stood down after revealing he was in a de facto relationship.<\/p>\n

Sam Johnstone was one of three people who gave evidence yesterday to a parliamentary inquiry into school bullying. The other two were students. All relate to different Catholic schools.<\/p>\n

Mr Johnstone is a practising Catholic and was the deputy principal of Marist Regional College in Burnie from 2021, until he was stood down in late 2024. It was a school he also attended.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He told the parliamentary inquiry he was going through a marriage break-up, and became very close to a female colleague whose “support became critical” to his wellbeing.<\/p>\n

The inquiry heard Mr Johnstone disclosed this relationship to the school \u2014 and that’s when things changed.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Sam Johnstone was stood down from his role of the deputy principal of Marist Regional College. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

“From that point on, the focus shifted. It was no longer about my professional conduct, my leadership or my years of service,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It became about my personal life or how it was perceived.<\/p>\n

“I was judged not on behaviour, but on the relationship and marital status. Not on evidence, but on assumption. Not with care, but with process and power.”<\/p>\n

Mr Johnstone told the commission that despite the fact there was no finding of professional wrongdoing or “evidence-based assessment of misconduct”, he was stood down from his position.<\/p>\n

“I was treated as though I was morally compromised and had been involved in criminal-type behaviour at a time when I was already deeply vulnerable and needed support and care,” he told the inquiry.<\/p>\n

“At that point, the discrimination became explicit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I was told I could not continue as a leader, and even a teacher in my school, nor could I teach in any other Catholic education Tasmania school.”<\/p>\n

The inquiry heard the “blanket exclusion” was not based on any substantiated finding of wrongdoing, and when he attempted to negotiate, he was offered “diminished” non-teaching roles.<\/p>\n

Mr Johnstone eventually resigned and signed a non-disclosure agreement.<\/p>\n

He told the inquiry that agreement explicitly stated that no professional criminal wrongdoing occurred.<\/p>\n

“I lost my role. I lost my vocation. I lost my community, when I needed all of them the most,” he said.<\/p>\n

“And despite the severity of what occurred, there has been no accountability for those who made these decisions, while I continue to carry the consequences.”<\/p>\n

Mr Johnstone said he had chosen to share his story in the hope it would affect change.<\/p>\n

“People shouldn’t live in fear \u2026 whether it be young male or females, that are either heterosexual, homosexual, gender-fluid, or whatever it is they’re dealing with, or their marital status,” he said.<\/p>\n

“People need to be able to feel safe \u2026 and they feel that there’s an arm-around approach as opposed to a punitive, out the door [one].”<\/p>\n

Trans student placed alone in tent on school camp<\/p>\n

St Patrick’s College student Amilie Courtney, 17, also shared her experience with the inquiry.<\/p>\n

The transgender girl described having to navigate an education system that treated her as a “problem to be managed rather than a person to be supported”.<\/p>\n

“The impact of this is not abstract. It is daily, practical, and exhausting,” she told the inquiry.<\/p>\n

Ms Courtney said when she started in Year 7, her ‘dead name’ \u2014 or former birth name \u2014 appeared on the roll.<\/p>\n

After she raised it, it was changed so that her preferred name was then shown in brackets.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Amilie Courtney described having to navigate an education system that treated her as a “problem to be managed”. (Supplied: Parliament of Tasmania)<\/p>\n

It was eventually fixed, but Ms Courtney told the inquiry that reports and documents were still sent home under her dead name.<\/p>\n

“This might sound small, but being forced to repeatedly see and explain a name that does not represent you is deeply distressing,” she said.<\/p>\n

She said bullying had been serious, sharing a story of her experience in Year 9 when one of the boys mocked her using her dead name.<\/p>\n

“[He] told the other students in the class, ‘Call him Oliver. That’s his real name’,” she said.<\/p>\n

“They kept yelling, ‘Oliver, Oliver, Oliver’ at me until I left the area in tears.<\/p>\n

“I reported it and I was told the boys were given the punishment of a stern talk.<\/p>\n

“That was it. No meaningful consequences. A few days later, I was required to spend two hours on a bus trip with these same students.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“No-one checked if I was safe. No safety plan was put in place.”<\/p>\n

Ms Courtney also said she was placed in a tent on her own on school camps, isolated from the rest of the students.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

A student detailed the experiences of being bullied at St Patrick’s College. (Supplied: St Patrick’s College)<\/p>\n

“Normally, students are placed into small groups of the same gender and shared tents and responsibilities,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Because I’m transgender \u2014 and therefore considered a risk \u2014 I’m not allowed to be in any group.<\/p>\n

“I’m placed alone in my own tent and expected to manage everything by myself.<\/p>\n

“At the campsite, the boys would have one side of the paddock. The girls would have the other. And I would be in a tent around about 100 metres away.<\/p>\n

“So while everyone was forming friendships and memories, I was physically and socially separated.”<\/p>\n

Ms Courtney told the inquiry all she wanted was equal treatment.<\/p>\n

“I’m asking to be allowed to go to the bathroom to get changed, to go on camps, to be able to be called my name in a way that I feel proud of, and that the same way that other students are,” she said.<\/p>\n

“No child should have to trade their dignity for an education.”<\/p>\n

Staff ignored loud and explicit homophobia<\/p>\n

Leon Pecl is a transgender man, but for a long time he identified and presented as a gay woman, including throughout his entire schooling at Mount Carmel College from 2009 to 2019.<\/p>\n

Mr Pecl told the inquiry that throughout school he faced bullying, ostracism and harassment because of his sexuality.<\/p>\n

“I clearly recall an incident in maths class where I was being loudly interrogated by a fellow student about my sexual orientation,” he said.<\/p>\n

“She repeated invasive, vulgar and sexually explicit questions, that no 14-year-old should be expected to answer at all, let alone in front of their entire class.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This happened a metre and half from our teacher who continued grading work at her desk as though nothing had occurred.”<\/p>\n

He said incidents like this were commonplace.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Leon Pecl said that throughout school he faced bullying, ostracism and harassment because of his sexuality. (Supplied: Parliament of Tasmania)<\/p>\n

“The majority of staff ignored loud and explicit homophobia and transphobia,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Reporting homophobic bullying did more harm than help as a lot of the staff did not care, and all it ever did was, in their mind, confirmed you were gay.<\/p>\n

“My childhood friends and I were banned from physical contact such as hugging or holding hands \u2014 all at an age where I think that is quite developmentally normal for young girls to do.<\/p>\n

“Other girls were, of course, allowed to engage in these friendly behaviours and were allowed to form and keep close friendships without suspicion because they were heterosexual.”<\/p>\n

He said in the classroom “anything LGBT-related was considered a taboo topic” and many teachers refused to engage with it.<\/p>\n

Asked what he wanted to come out of the inquiry, Mr Pecl said he wanted to see real action taken against bullying.<\/p>\n

“No queer Tasmanian that I have ever spoken to … ever reports having had a good experience at a Catholic school,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It is an environment that enables, and sometimes even encourages, hostility toward queerness.<\/p>\n

“You are not able to go to school, learn, make friends like any other student.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Catholic Education Tasmania said it took bullying and discrimination seriously. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

The ABC contacted Catholic Education Tasmania and detailed some of the allegations made by the three witnesses.<\/p>\n

In response, the Archdiocese and Catholic Education Tasmania said they “take bullying and discrimination extremely seriously and we aim to provide a safe environment for all who are involved in Catholic education”.<\/p>\n

“It would be inappropriate to publicly respond to individual statements made under privilege to a parliamentary committee,” they said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former deputy principal at a Tasmanian Catholic School has told a parliamentary inquiry he was “treated as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,230557,30165,2555,230558,230560,44,156722,20637,230559,30023,51700],"class_list":["post-444017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-catholic-school","tag-deputy","tag-education","tag-marist-regional-college","tag-mount-carmel-college","tag-news","tag-principal","tag-school","tag-st-patricks-college","tag-teacher","tag-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}