A casual teacher at a Sydney private school has been charged with grooming a teenage girl and accessing child abuse material.<\/p>\n
The NSW Police Sex Crimes Squad descended on the Beecroft home of Newington College teacher Benjamin David Collinge about 5:45am today.<\/p>\n
Child Abuse Investigation Unit detectives allege Mr Collinge attempted to encourage a 14-year-old girl on social media to send sexually explicit images in exchange for money.<\/p>\n
Police alleged the girl was not known to the 29-year-old and the school said none of its students were affected.<\/p>\n
Sex Crimes Squad Acting Commander Superintendent Karl Leis said police would allege Mr Collinge posed as a teenager.<\/p>\n
“We will allege that this particular 29-year-old purported to be a 17-year-old boy, bearing in mind that the child is 14,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old is accused of posing as a teenage boy in his interactions with the girl.\u00a0 (Supplied: NSW Police)<\/p>\n
Police had been acting on a report made to officers last Wednesday from the girl’s parents about the Newington teacher’s communications with the minor.<\/p>\n
Mr Collinge was taken to Gladesville Police Station, where he was charged with using a carriage service to groom someone under 16 and using a carriage service to access child abuse material.<\/p>\n
Police alleged after his arrest that a search of his devices unearthed child abuse material.<\/p>\n
“We will allege that the 29-year-old actively took steps online to reach out to this vulnerable 14-year-old girl who was not known to him,” Superintendent Leis said.<\/p>\n
“However, I will say that the 29-year-old man did take steps to pressure the child during that dialogue, trying to encourage her to send him sexually explicit material in exchange for money.”<\/p>\n
School sacks teacher<\/p>\n
Newington College told parents this afternoon that Mr Collinge had been sacked.<\/p>\n
“Newington College has terminated the employment of casual staff member, Benjamin David Collinge, after he was charged today with child protection crimes,” headmaster Michael Parker wrote in a letter.<\/p>\n
“Police have informed us that no Newington students, or students at schools we have recently been associated with, have been identified as having been involved.”<\/p>\n
The headmaster said Mr Collinge had worked in various casual roles with the music department at the senior Wyvern House and Lindfield campuses since 2015.<\/p>\n
He said during that time Mr Collinge had “completed all mandatory child protection training, held a valid working with children check, and there were not complaints about his behaviour.”<\/p>\n
Mr Collinge was refused bail at Burwood Local Court and the matter is expected to return to court in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A casual teacher at a Sydney private school has been charged with grooming a teenage girl and accessing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[278552,278550,43,278549,44,4277,278551,30023,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-566258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-14yo-girl","9":"tag-benjamin-collinge","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-newington","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-nsw-police","14":"tag-stanmore","15":"tag-teacher","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566258","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=566258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}