Taurapa, formerly known as Connor Taurapa Matthews, had a sexual relationship with a year-old student at a private girls' school while he was a teacher. His conduct strikes at the heart of the teacher-student relationship a disciplinary tribunal said, and was so serious the teacher has been struck off.
Over the course of a year, Taurapa engaged in a relationship with the Year 12 student. Both Taurapa and the teenager were heavily involved in performing arts at the school. Usually, the names of students in Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal cases are suppressed but in this case, Helena Dray asked the tribunal to waive her name suppression.
Dray and Taurapa would regularly communicate via social media as part of a te reo study group chat. The content of the discussions between Taurapa and the other four students were innocuous to begin with, but Taurapa then began to message Dray directly.
The conversation became personalised and occurred outside of school hours. Around this time, Dray said Taurapa began to ask about sexualised topics, including masturbation. Eventually, the pair spent time alone together. Over the following month of May, while working together on a musical production, Taurapa would meet Dray in dressing rooms, kissing and groping her. Taurapa would also offer to drop Dray home after rehearsals. He would hold her hand in the car and tell her to duck down if driving around town.
The actions left Dray feeling conflicted, used, and emotionally drained, she told the tribunal. Not long after that, Dray performed oral sex on Taurapa while he performed a sex act on her.
