Timothy Croot: Former WA teacher who inappropriately touched student guilty of further three offences

A former teacher who admitted inappropriately touching a student because he wanted her attention and because it made him feel “needed” has been found guilty of three further offences. Timothy Croot has been remanded custody having been on trial in the WA District Court this week accused of touching the girl’s genitals over her clothing, encouraging her to touch his and exposing his underwear to her while on a school bus. He was also accused of engaging in sexually explicit conversations with her. The incidents were said to have occurred while he was helping her with sporting equipment during two separate excursions and on the bus, on two different occasions. He denied the allegations. Before the trial began, the 31-year-old did plead guilty to touching the girl 11 times over that same time period but denied her version of events, claiming some of the incidents were brief and not as lengthy as alleged by the teen. He also denied he had a sexual interest in the 14-year-old when he touched her, saying it was his way of “flirting”, adding he wanted her attention. “She was giving me attention and it was making me feel needed,” he said in his evidence. “At the time, I was feeling very broken and not good about myself. The attention she gave me made me feel a sense of need. “(It) made me feel like I mattered.” The father-of-two also denied he wanted to kiss the girl despite telling her to leave the classroom after he had touched her backside for the fourth time because he didn’t want to do something he would regret, such as kissing her. He testified that he said that because he felt the “moment snowballing … that I would get myself into a spot and do something I regretted”. In her closing address, prosecutor Shelley Cerqui told the jury it made no sense for Croot to say that if he didn’t want to kiss her, suggesting this was an example of him being untruthful. She also said he had an opportunity to offend against the teen on the sporting excursion and on the bus because the pair were mostly by themselves and not in the direct view of other students or adults. But Croot’s lawyer, Simon Freitag SC, told the jury his client pleaded guilty to the offences he committed, saying some of the touching took place when no-one else was around. He said he could have denied those encounters but didn’t, and had owned up to what he had done. After six hours of deliberations on Friday, the jury convicted him of three charges and acquitted him of three. Croot’s supporters, including his partner, wept in the public gallery. He will be sentenced on December 13, with a private psychological report to be prepared beforehand. Mr Freitag said it was accepted the offences would inevitably result in a term of immediate imprisonment and Croot - who until Friday had been out on bail - was remanded in custody.