1 My name is Andrew McCarthy ` science teacher. In 2012, I was charged with indecent assault on a 14-year-old student of mine. I was branded a paedophile. The accusation nearly destroyed my life. This is my story. Copyright Able 2017 The incident happened on March the 16th 2010. The student came into the room, said that she had attempted to go to the sick bay, but had been referred to me. She said she had a very sore throat. I asked her to sit down. MAN: The girl alleged that Mr McCarthy took her into his office to check for tonsillitis; there were no other people present; and that in the course of that examination, he indecently touched her breasts with a rubbing motion. (TENSE MUSIC) Two police persons turned up to the house, issuing me with a summons to appear in court in the following January, charged with assault on a child age 12 to 16. Police say that when I checked this girl for tonsillitis, I deliberately grabbed her breasts. They said she felt distinctly uncomfortable about this, and they say that there was no witness present. Now, that's just asking for trouble. Um, the motto in our school, too, was that, um ` particularly if you're a male teacher ` is never be alone with a student of the opposite sex. I got involved towards the end of 2012. Andrew McCarthy came to my office. He was nervous, and, uh, seemed to be very much in need of legal assistance. Um, he struck me as eccentric. Obviously, a very intelligent man. I was thoroughly confused. I simply couldn't understand what was going on. It was silly. I hadn't done anything wrong. (BIRDSONG) (REWINDING TAPE WHIRRS) (LIGHT MUSIC) WOMAN: He's different, and I don't think people understand that. Oop. Pond skater. There we are. Lymnaea stagnalis. You know, he may come across as, you know, eccentric and maybe a bit of a twat, really. But, you know, Andrew's Andrew. He's` He's fun. He's` He's passionate. And, yeah, I don't know if someone took that the wrong way. I` I don't know. I suppose that on occasions I am a little bit different. I've got a beautiful tie with little pigs all over it that says MCP ` male chauvinist pig. And, on the inside of the tie, it has a girl dressed in a 1970s bikini ` fairly coverall bikini at that. I remember, you know, walking into` to the first science class, and here's Mr McCarthy with the crazy white hair and the lab coat. Just imagine the story. Sodium, very reactive metal; chlorine, poisonous gas. Just` GRUFFLY: Hey, my name's Mr Sodium. SOFTLY: Well, hello there Mr Sodium. I could just do with an extra electron. He was this, sort of, larger-than-life character, and, um, we all just, kind of, sat up and went, 'Far out. This is gonna be interesting.' GRUFFLY: Right then, pet. I'm going to give you an electron, and I'm going to become (GRUFFLY) positively charged. HOLLY: He's pretty dramatic, as far as being a teacher. You could see him on stage, at times. SOFTLY: You give me an extra electron; I become negatively charged, and we're attracted to each other. So I do have some oddities. So what? So, if I'm leaving, that's just so terrific and exciting! By the end of 2012, there were several complaints against Mr McCarthy which were being investigated by Child, Youth and Family. (SOLEMN MUSIC) A parent, who happens to be a police officer, complained that I had behaved verbally inappropriately towards his daughter. He wrote that Mr McCarthy had called his daughter 'sweet pea'. Many of the children have got nicknames. I had called the daughter 'sweet pea'. I think I'd even done it in front of his wife. I'm sorry about that. It's just the way I tend to do things. Mr McCarthy can be his own worst enemy at times. At about this time, I get myself offside with another couple of police people. Two detectives come to Mr McCarthy's house. The officers say they were about to leave when Mr McCarthy stopped them. My blood pressure had shot through the roof. I did, however, notice that the wheelbarrow was full of water, so I emptied it out and then told them to shove off in, probably, not very parliamentary terms. Later, the police charge him with assault in relation to the incident. So, by Christmas 2012, I faced one indecent assault charge; two assault charges on police persons. I had had complaints about inappropriate behaviour and words in the classroom. (INHALES DEEPLY) Prior to that, life had thrown me a few curved balls, but this was my lowest moment. It's December 2012. Mr McCarthy is facing a charge of indecent assault against one of his pupils, and also two charges of assault on police officers. My career seems to be at an end. Do I face prison? Do I face community service? I don't have a clue. I am dead worried. (REWINDING TAPE WHIRRS) I moved to this small, rural town in 1988, after the separation from my first wife. I was a solo father of two girls ` quite a daunting proposition ` plus I was head of science at the small, local high school, but I love the place where I live. (LIGHT MUSIC) MAN: I was in a bar full of coal miners, mainly, and their wives. Very busy. And, all of a sudden, this voice said, 'Please, may I have a jug?' And it was so different, the culture of the voice. And that's where I first met Andrew McCarthy, and he stood out in the crowd. He was tall, well-spoken, and, uh, he certainly had that` that English gentleman culture about him. He's a great teacher, and everyone, all the kids and the staff and stuff, uh, love` He's, uh, got a very different, um, unorthodox teaching style. Um, but, you know, he's always had a` a great communication` relationship with, uh` with his students. He made science, (COUGHS) which could have been a boring subject to some children, interesting. He just had that way about him. We sort of found out through all the students what was happening. Everyone was quite shocked. Oh I think everybody around here was` couldn't believe it; couldn't believe that Andrew could be charged with something like that. It was just totally out of character. (SOFT CHIMING MUSIC) My first wife and myself had remained on reasonable terms, and the children would stay one holiday with me and the next holiday with my first wife. Then Catherine, the younger, came back down here to go to the local polytechnic on the outdoor education course. The thing I most remember is the fun we had playing. We had new kittens, um, and there's a really cool photo of Cathy, Dad and I with the kittens. HOLLY: I went to school with Catherine. She was brought up on the outdoors. She was brought up with science. That was` That was their life. She was small, energetic, and flitted from subject to subject, just like a butterfly. Friday April the 28th 1995, suddenly, my whole world crashed around me, along with a viewing platform at Cave Creek. With Cave Creek, there were a whole slew of mistakes which were not identified as such at the time and only became apparent when they all came together in a terrible tragedy. I'd been teaching last period in the afternoon, and the school secretary came in and insisted that I had to, uh, leave the room, and somebody else would look after it. Nobody would tell me what was going on. When we went to the hospital, that's` We all, sort of, congregated at the hospital. Um, and it was about 8 o'clock at night. We waited in this room. We waited, Lorraine and myself. We waited for two hours. Then a kind policeman came in. He had a list of those who had been on the trip. The kind policeman had put a tick and a cross by every name. Then he told us he was going to leave the room, so we, the waiters, could actually look down and see what had happened. And Catherine's name had a cross against it. (SOMBRE MUSIC) And that was that, you know. So, um, yeah, there was no crying. There was no stress. There was no anger. There was just` Well, it possibly was all on the inside, or was on the inside, but not visible on the outside. I didn't take any time off school. I went straight in... (INHALES DEEPLY, COUGHS) And I told the kids at assembly, and then I just carried on. That was all I could do. He didn't talk about Catherine's death at all. Uh, he got involved in the, um, proceedings with the court, and, well, the inquiry into the` the accident. FEMALE REPORTER: Andrew McCarthy's daughter died that day. He's been representing himself at the enquiry and has his views on the workmanship. For the sake of the parents today, and for the sake of kids in the future, we've gotta find out everything we can to prevent any future tragedies. BERNADETTE: Dad went into... 'I need something to focus on.' 'I need something else 'to put my brain into.' And so he became very focused and very energised by what actually went wrong ` what caused the platform at Cave Creek to fall? How did all of this happen? And he became really involved in the inquiry, um, and, I guess, you could call that manic. Um, he was certainly highly involved, emotionally unavailable. He was caught up in what he was doing. Mr McCarthy was a person who could easily have collapsed with the weight of the personal tragedy that he had experienced. However, with the compensation money he received from the government, he helped fund a community centre for at-risk youth, and as part of that, uh, a social worker was employed. The money was there. The money was needed here. What better place? Whether it was to do with youth or just to help people in broad, general terms. One likes to think that despite the ups and downs, that one has helped people. And that's what we're here for ` to help other people. (CHICKENS CLUCK) After three or four years after Cave Creek, I started to get my life back on track. In 1999, I married my second wife, Lorraine. Uh, we worked together at school in various roles. Lorraine rising up the ranks rather quickly; starting off as being my underling, ending up by being my boss, which was utterly fascinating. Um, but we worked rather well together. I found him really interesting to talk to. You know, we could yak for hours about things and have really good debates about things. And it was nice to be able to talk to somebody who knew stuff that you didn't know, because learning is part of` of my life, and` and, um, he was a good learning objective. (CHUCKLES) (INDISTINCT CONVERSATION) In 2010, I'd more or less got over the worst of the tragedy of Cave Creek. I'd met and married Lorraine, my wife. I was working hard and thoroughly enjoying my teaching. In fact, I had just started teaching at the polytechnic as well. What could go wrong? (GIRLS CHATTER, LAUGH) The pupil who would later make the complaint of indecent assault against Mr McCarthy joined the high school. Previously, I'd actually taught her mother; not very successfully, be it said. And, frankly, there was just that little bit of teacher interchange between the primary schools and ourselves, and we did realise that we had, possibly, a bit of a problem coming our way. 1 Without my realising it, my future accuser came to our school. The girl, I believe, had quite a difficult family life. She was mentally fragile, having a bit of a chip on her shoulder, particularly about males in any form of authority. She found that very difficult to take, and she was used to getting her own way. The student was... disengaged at school. There'd been a continuing number of discipline incidents recorded against her. Regrettably, she frequently got into trouble ` bullying, harassing and even assaulting other students. LORRAINE: There were three girls that were always skiving off. They were wagging the class and going to sick bay, and as soon as the period had finished, they` up and off they went, back to the next one. We took their phones off them to discourage that, but... As dean for that particular year group, I put my foot down. I went along to the office, and I said, 'If this list of students wants to absent themselves from class, 'they're to be seen by a form teacher or myself before they can go.' This girl had told, um, Andrew that she wasn't feeling well, and, um, he decided that he would check her tonsils. One of Andrew's daughters got tonsillitis, so he knew about that. Now, let's have a look at you. (GROANS) Your glands. Arms up. The next day, March the 17th 2010, the child did go to the doctor with her mother. The doctor confirms that she had a sore throat, gave her a course of antibiotics and saw that she was genuinely ill. It was alleged that the girl said to the doctor that she had been examined by Mr McCarthy. The doctor then wrote a letter to the principal of the school. When the principal received the letter from the doctor, he was very, very concerned. So he asked me to explain. Overall, I was an idiot. Knowing too much about the background of the student, knowing too much about tonsillitis, probably knowing too much about microbiology ` I should have just left it for the doctor to confirm what I knew was wrong. We got the comment about, 'Why didn't Andrew send this girl to the nurse?' Well, our school's small, and we don't have a nurse, you know. We're dependent on ourselves and contacting parents. I did not touch her breasts. I had absolutely no sexual intent towards her. Essentially, it was her word against mine. The principal believed me, and on March the 22nd 2010, he sent a letter to the doctor, explaining to the doctor that the girl had not told the full truth. I thought that was the end of the matter. Little did I know what was going to happen some years down the track. WOMAN: Your honour, the defendant has been charged with... In 2012, I myself become involved in a messy dispute with CYFs. EYMARD: I can't go into detail about this, but he also was involved with CYFs and some complaints relating to a member of his wider family. It was messy, as things often happen with CYFs. Someone involved in that case before the Family Court goes to CYFs with a complaint about Mr McCarthy, which is referred to the police, who advise them that they can't take the matter further unless someone else complains. You're in a small town. There's lots of things going on behind the scenes, and everybody knows each other. People have opinions. Some of those opinions are well-formed, others are subject to gossip and innuendo and feed off each other. So then, in June or July 2012, CYFs are told of the tonsillitis examination incident, which had occurred over two years beforehand. (CAMERA SNAPS) I can only conclude that that call was prompted by somebody who wanted to discredit me in the Family Court. As a result of this, CYFs tells the school that it now has a second complaint, and therefore the grounds to interview other pupils at the school. Further, tells the school that Mr McCarthy is not to be told of this. (TENSE MUSIC) Did you feel that Mr McCarthy was inappropriate at all? No. BRIDGETTE: I was called in, and I brought my mum in with me at the time, and we were just asked a whole heap of questions about him ` if he'd ever been inappropriate to me; if I'd noticed any inappropriate behaviour in the classroom; if I found his teaching styles appropriate. On August the 14th 2012, CYFs then contact the police. And then, 10 days later, the police interview the school pupil who had alleged the indecent assault by Mr McCarthy. She tells them the same stories as before, and then she adds that I had touched her face because it was puffy. She also adds that I told children to take off their jackets in the classroom. She claims that this made the children feel uncomfortable. And, apparently, she blames me for her having left the school. This was an interview by a specialist police investigator, and this meant that this interview could be used in criminal proceedings against Mr McCarthy. (SOLEMN MUSIC) OK, can you explain what happened? So, we have a situation where, in 2012, we have an investigation going on as to whether or not Andrew McCarthy indecently assaulted a pupil. Students were being interviewed by CYFs staff and by the police. On October the 10th 2012, the police executed a search warrant on the school. They also take photographs of the lab, of the lab office. The school was unhappy about this, but complied with the, um, search. By this time, there's a new school principal, and he is also very, very supportive of me. Obviously, the school felt that` that Andrew wasn't guilty as charged, otherwise they would not have supported him. I think that was, um, probably the best thing for Andrew ` to feel that he had` was supported by the school. It appears from the disclosure that the school accepted that what Andrew had done was breaching school policy, especially on the question of touching. And that it could be generally described that he was foolish to have done so. However, the school did not believe that, um, he'd done anything that should attract, um, criminal liability. By this time, I was really getting worried, so I took advice from the Post Primary Teachers' Association, and they instructed me not to talk to the police without a lawyer being present That was communicated to police, that Mr McCarthy would not be making a statement, and that if he did so, it'd have to be with his lawyer present. Despite that, the police went to Mr McCarthy's house, um, to interview him. How dare they come round to my house and then want to interview me there. It feels as though I am being ambushed. I'd like you to come down now. Oh, I've had enough of this! (WATER SPLASHES) Go! Get out of here! The result of, uh, that visit was that he w` was charged with two further offenses in assaulting the two police officers concerned. I suspect my reaction, or overreaction, was the sum culmination of stresses which had occurred over six, nine months. I could see (CLEARS THROAT) Andrew's health deteriorated. Um, I know he had a stroke, and the weight just fell off him. And he looked like a shattered man, he really did. I felt really sorry for him, and nothing we could say would take that concern away from him. He was just devastated. On December the 5th 2012, CYFs wrote to the school and told them that their investigation was complete. READS: We are satisfied that there are no concerns that we need to follow up after completion of our child-focused interviews. (SIGHS) I felt, 'That's wonderful. 'At long last, we can get on with our lives.' We've got Christmas coming up. Let's concentrate upon the good things in life. No, it wasn't the end of the matter. LORRAINE: CYFs contacted the school, or came in, and said that Andrew was, um, going to be arrested on a serious sexual assault charge. And they came into my office to tell me about it, because we both worked at the same school. And, um, yeah, shortly after that, um, somebody asked me, 'Are you gonna leave him?' He still faced, uh, the indecent assault charge, and that's a very serious matter for him. I thought the whole matter was over, and then I find out that I'm facing a very, very serious charge. If he'd been found guilty and said, 'Well, I didn't do it,' you know ` no remorse ` he's a man with no remorse. Maybe I'd have gone to prison. Maybe this, maybe that. Certainly, my career is over. And in a smaller, rural place, my name would be mud. I felt devastated. Absolutely devastated. What on earth else could I do? I felt I was being ground through a mincing machine. LORRAINE: His` His personality changed a bit. He would just sit and stare, and stare as though he was deep in thought. And he was reluctant to do anything. I felt so much for my wife. She had to suffer, and it wasn't any of her fault. She had to put up with me working at 10% efficiency. She had to put up with me in my moods. Later on, she had to put up with me in my suicidal moods and my angry moods. I was not a nice person to know. I'm committed to my marriage, you know. That's` That's something that you do for` for better or for worse; and this was the 'worse' situation. And you can't just pick out the good bits and stay round for those, you do have to cope with` with the nasties as well. January the 28th 2013, aged 66, I appear in the District Court charged with indecent assault. I was asked how I plead; I said, 'not guilty', and that was it. I felt it was a waste of my time. I felt it was a waste of taxpayers' money. Mr McCarthy elected trial by jury and was remanded through to a, uh, pretrial conference. I did inform the polytechnic that I was facing a charge, and the polytechnic were very supportive. The chief executive said` wrote back a letter and said, 'Please just carry on your present teaching.' On February the 13th 2013, the teachers' council proposed to Mr McCarthy that he be stood down on full pay until the trial was over. My daughter was in his class. (SIGHS) Um, and, yeah, the children all suffered, because, all of a sudden, everything that they'd been working towards and the teacher they'd been working with was pulled from them, and, yeah, they` they all suffered. Um, I don't know the rates, but I believe a lot of the children failed that year. I spent a horrible three months at home mooning around, attempting to do jobs around the house. (INHALES DEEPLY) But not as easy as it might seem. He` He didn't say much at all. Um,... Andrew has a` a stiff upper lip mentality and just kept it to himself what` what he was feeling. He would` He would answer your questions, but he wouldn't volunteer any information or any, um, emotion about it. He'd just bottle it up. I think I was brought up where` in the age when men didn't cry, so, as for crying, externally, I never did. But internally, it was probably actually worse. (SOLEMN MUSIC) During my darkest of moods, I make no bones about it, but my spiritual beliefs came very much to the fore. However, I also had human support locally; particularly from Lorraine, particularly from the students. This is one letter I received, (READS) 'Dear Mr McCarthy, I read with some sadness 'the articles about the investigation surrounding you...' HAYLEY CONTINUES: '...and thought that you deserve to know that there are many, many students 'who believe you are one of the greatest teachers and one who we remember with fondness. 'You did not just teach us science, but life lessons as well.' When I first read, um, what the allegations were in` in the newspaper ` that's how I found out about it ` and, um, I just thought, you know, this person who had given so much time, um, to me when I was a student there at school. Um, not only him, but his wife and` and his extended family. Um, I just thought, you know, 'What a horrible thing to have happen to them.' Thank you, Hayley. Thank you for writing it. I felt that the support from the community was really good; in fact, it was essential for Andrew's survival, and we certainly appreciated that. I think, just, it was so incomprehensible to me that` that someone could play games like that, you know. I` He was always just this upstanding member of the community; not just with school, but, you know, everything else as well, and` and I just` It was just ridiculous. There was no other word for it. The young lady had said that I had taken her into my office, closed the door, and we were by ourselves. EMPHATICALLY: That is untrue. The defence had a witness who would corroborate what Mr McCarthy was saying. Who would sexually assault a student in front of another teacher? The witness was vital, um, especially when you consider the consequences for Mr McCarthy, were he to be convicted. Um,... and the possibility of imprisonment for him. (INHALES DEEPLY) I had been charged with indecent assault on a student when I checked her for tonsillitis. I did not. Impossible. I had a witness there all of the time. (TENSE MUSIC) Um, as part of my teacher training, I had two placements, and one of my placements was there. It's not like this witness had appeared out of nowhere. Mr McCarthy had told the school from the outset that the student teacher was present during the, um, examination. So I had` I had just, uh, finished teaching one of, um, Andrew's classes, and, uh, I was packing up after class, and the students had left, and I was chatting with, um, Andrew. When I saw the particular student approach, I thought there might be a little bit of a bother. A girl walked into the classroom, and... I think she had` She was complaining about something` having a sore throat. I asked Rudy to stay and just carry on doing what he was doing, which was at the back of the lab, so that he'd be present in the room. I would have been about 2m or 4m away, at the most. And what's your problem? Andrew, uh, sat her on one of the tables and examined her throat and inside her mouth. That right tonsil was beautifully inflamed. So I thought carefully, and asked if I could just check her armpits to see if the infection had spread. Oh, your glands are up. You need to go to the office and tell them you need to see a doctor. Right away, please. After that, he sent her on her way. The whole examination would have lasted less than five minutes. I then said to her, 'You must see a doctor today. You should be off school until the end of the week.' Afterwards, when she left the classroom, she seemed fine. The school knew from the outset, um, that there was a witness present, and, in fact, they wrote to the doctor and informed the doctor of this. READS: 'Your letter stated that there was no supervision while Mr McCarthy was with a student. 'This has been refuted by the teacher concerned, 'who has informed me there was another staff member present.' That letter was written on March the 22nd 2010, which is shortly after the, um, incident was alleged to have happened. So they knew very soon afterwards. It was years after that that I was contacted by the police, uh, just to give a statement. I thought with a witness being present and hearing that the police had in fact contacted the witness and taken an affidavit, I thought that would be the end of the matter. I couldn't understand why they wanted to go on further. To charge Andrew with indecent assault was nuts. Stupid. And, uh, fortunately, the Crown decided not to file an indictment. It was just really a question of them waiting for the right time to do that, and this was hard for Andrew. On the 20th of August 2013, the Crown advised by memo that an indictment would not be filed, and that's, um, the equivalent of an acquittal for him. I decided to go and see Andrew, because I thought it was appropriate in the circumstances, given all that he'd been through, that I break the news in person. He came round to the house. He came in, sat down and said, 'The Crown are not proceeding with the case.' Andrew just about burst into tears at getting that news, and sort of laughing, and, you know, a bit upset at the same time. I felt absolutely numbed. My brain went absolutely blank, I think, for about three or four hours, from occasionally doing a little jig, and then just going into some catatonic state of doing absolutely nothing. I do remember the next day, when we went shopping, and I walked down the street, and I was saying to myself, 'Anybody can see me now. I'm free. I've been cleared. I'm all right.' I went down to the local` local shop, and on the outside of the shop were the headlines ` 'Teacher's Sex Charges Dropped'. And (SIGHS) that was my hus` my husband they were talking about. I think nowadays teachers are working in politicised territory. They have to be very careful, and any lapse in procedure, uh, any failure to abide by school policy and Ministry of Education guidelines can get you in trouble. And, unfortunately, Andrew was a victim of that ` as well as of his own foolishness. Yes, as a male teacher, uh, you do have to be very cautious with these things. Um, and even though it's only, I dunno, one in 100,000, or something like that, that ever, uh, does something untoward, the, um, you know` the suspicion falls on every male teacher. By September 2013, the two assault charges against the police are also dropped. What we're gonna learn about today is atoms! After I came back to the school, it was in the final term of the year. I was given a couple of classes, (INHALES DEEPLY) but I had to work extremely hard to get back on top of everything. I'd come home. I'd find one of the black moods would descend upon me, and I'd really go bad for up to two or three hours at a time. Sometimes it appeared for two or three days at a time. I did less and less bug hunting. I was worried about some busybody might report me to CYFs, because there I am, out in the open, with a whole gang of kids around me. I think it still leaves a legacy in a small town that if you've been charged, some people are going to think you're a paedophile. The word 'paedophilia' is absolutely horrible. To excuse a paedophile... How could you do that? This is the worst charge, I think, that anybody can have. I just feel sad about the whole situation ` how some people were supportive of Andrew, and some people were absolutely convinced that he was guilty. And the fact that charges were dropped didn't change their attitude too much. I just think there's always gonna be someone, especially male teachers in high school ` they're always gonna be open to a lot of criticism. In a small community, um, the truth always` always comes out in the end, you know. Um, and especially in a situation like that, where there's someone who was` I feel, well, still is a very upstanding member of the community. Um, you know, he's still teaching. He's` He's still doing these great things, and` and he still has past students that are willing to` to stand up and` and talk, you know, these really positive things about him, and I think that that says a lot. The police, CYFs and, you know, professional bodies who regulate` Professionals have a really hard job. They've gotta keep the public safe. Um, but what Dad was accused of, he was innocent. I was utterly silly. I didn't think clearly enough. The principal at that time actually said to me about three days after the incident, 'Why didn't you get the girl to feel her own glands?' And I said, 'I didn't think of that.' Hindsight is a wonderful teacher. My name is Andrew McCarthy ` science teacher. In 2012, I was charged with indecent assault on a 14-year-old student of mine. I was branded a paedophile. I am innocent. Captions by Chelsea Thoresen 1