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A primary school teacher who stroked and massaged two schoolgirls’ feet was part of a Facebook group dedicated to feet.

While Matthew Sue’s lawyer argued the contact wasn’t overtly sexual in nature, that was rejected by the judge who noted Sue had a long-held fascination with feet.

At the time of the offending Sue followed a free adult entertainment service page on Facebook that was specifically for updates and posts about feet.

Sue, now 33, spent just 11 days at the school and no longer works as a teacher.

But in February last year he’d just started as a teacher at the school, which can’t be identified due to a court-imposed suppression.

The Wellington District Court heard Sue called the girls, then aged 9 and 10, separately into his classroom. Sue wasn’t their regular teacher.

He told one student not to worry as she wasn’t in trouble and the other not to tell anyone.

After telling other students to leave, Sue would lock the classroom door and tell the girl to take off her shoes.

Sue then began stroking, rubbing, massaging and tapping their bare feet.

One girl said she didn’t feel safe and tried to tell Sue to stop, but he continued to touch her feet.

The other said she felt weird and wondered if she was going to get into trouble.

The offending came to light when one girl told her regular teacher and the other her parents.

When confronted by the school’s principal, Sue admitted touching one of the girl’s feet on three occasions and the other once.

He told the principal he thought one girl was walking oddly and scratching her feet and the other looked uncomfortable when walking and standing.

He said he wanted to make sure their feet were okay.

‘It’s a weird situation': father

A victim impact statement read to the court from the father of one of the victims, whose name is suppressed, said he couldn’t believe the audacity of Sue’s offending.

“It’s a weird situation; I don’t want to talk to my daughter about it because I don’t want to retraumatise her.

“I don’t want this happening to any other kids, it’s affected our family big time and I’m grateful he got caught when he did.”

He said by telling the girls not to tell anyone and then lying to the principal about it, Sue had breached his daughter’s trust. That made him worried for his daughter growing up, he said.

The father also expressed surprise that as of October last year Sue was still on full pay.

Matthew Sue in the Wellington District Court for sentencing on a charge of indecent assault on a female under 12 years of age. Photo / Catherine Hutton

Sue ‘my soul was broken’

Lawyer Hamish Cameron said his client was remorseful and told a probation officer his “soul was broken”, which explained Sue’s feelings and the impact on his victims.

Aside from his remorse, Cameron asked the judge to consider Sue’s guilty plea and his good character.

Sentencing Judge Peter Hobbs said Sue had taken the girls into his classroom on four separate occasions.

He had offended against young girls who were vulnerable because of their age. There was also a significant breach of trust because Sue was a teacher.

Finally, there was inevitably an impact on young children when this type of thing occurred - which was also an aggravating feature, he said.

Judge Hobbs said while Cameron had emphasised the touching wasn’t overtly sexual in nature, he was sure the girls would have been confused and frightened by what had occurred.

Both the Crown and defence sought a sentence of community detention and supervision to allow for rehabilitation.

Sue was assessed as being of a low risk of reoffending, and while a pre-sentence report suggested supervision may not be necessary, Judge Hobbs said it clearly was.

“It is clear from the material before me that you have, from an early age, been fascinated by feet and that fascination has extended to shoes.

“Supervision is necessary to ensure, as best one can, that this fascination does not ever again result in something of this nature occurring because it is clearly inappropriate and unlawful and you have acknowledged that,” he said.

Finally, the judge said Sue’s teaching career was over because of this offending and he is now retraining.

In a statement following Sue’s sentencing, the school’s principal said the teacher was investigated for inappropriate behaviour at the start of last year.

He’d worked at the school for just 11 days, before he went on leave.

The statement said staff went through expansive reference checks, police vetting and were also required to adhere to the school’s code of conduct.

“We can affirm that there is no greater priority for us than the health, safety and wellbeing of our students.”

As a result of the incident, the principal said various organisations were notified including police, the Ministry of Education and the Teaching Council.

On a charge of indecent assault on a girl under 12 years old, Sue was sentenced to six months’ community detention with a nightly curfew and ordered to undertake 12 months’ supervision for assessment, treatment and counselling as directed by a probation officer.

Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.