Valhalla teacher on sexual assault charges will stay in jail

The case against a teacher accused of sexually assaulting as many as 23 pupils at Valhalla Primary School in Centurion has been postponed to February 13.

The teacher will remain behind bars after a brief court appearance in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Friday.

Gauteng education department spokesperson Steve Mabona said the teacher was arrested on Thursday.

The teacher told the court he had no prior convictions or pending cases against him. The state said there were seven counts of sexual assault against the teacher, but police investigations are continuing.

He was removed from the school on Wednesday after the department acted on allegations that pupils had fallen prey to him.

A team of officials from the district, as well as the department’s psycho-social unit, had gone to the school following reports that parents were planning a meeting and had threatened to pull their children out of the school.

This was not just because of the allegations, but because the teacher was still teaching there in spite of them.

Mabona had told TimesLIVE that the matter was first reported to the department at the end of January.

He stressed that the department had a zero-tolerance approach to allegations of sexual misconduct and had, on Wednesday, said that if the allegations were proven to be true, decisive action would be taken against the perpetrator.