SPCS

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

Rachel Kellie Whitwell: Teacher censured after appearing in porn magazines

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In its Media Release of 5 March 2011, the highly respected registered charity Family First NZ welcomed the majority decision by the New Zealand Teacher’s Council to formally censure a female primary school teacher for her “serious misconduct”  – involving her work as a porn magazine model – and ordered her deregistration (See 35 page decision The Complaints Assessment Committee v Rachel Kellie Whitwell. NZTDT 2011/7).

The Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal ruled that the defendent, aged 29, must meet the CAC’s actual and reasonable cost associated with the disciplinary proceeding and pay half the Tribunal’s costs.

“Teachers have a special status as leaders and should be respected – especially by our children,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

“Modeling and selling naked photos to a pornographic magazine doesn’t meet that standard. Associating the photos with her profession of teaching children is also unacceptable.

“These sexually explicit photos of the teacher have been published and are now in the public domain. The combined role of porn star and primary school teacher simply doesn’t fit for many families. Parents would be just as concerned if a teacher was coming to school topless or teaching that pornographic magazines are harmless. [Read more…]

NZ Charities Commission – to be disestablished

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The imminent disestablishment of the New Zealand Charities Commission, scheduled to occur on 1 July 2012, if the Government achieves its legislative plans, has caused some serious concerns among those involved in organisations working in the charities sector. However, some are welcoming the move, in particular some of those who have experienced the downside of the “egregious inner machinations of the complaint-driven deregistration process”, as one aggrieved charity CEO expressed it, with its unreasonable and seemingly blind adherence to an out-dated 400-year old Victorian definition of “charitable purpose”.

A number of influencial media commentators have sounded alarm bells over the last few years as groups such as the highly regarded National Council of Women of New Zealand, Business in the Community Limited (Business Mentors NZ – the nation’s number one not-for-profit mentoring organisation), The Business in the Community Trust,  the Liberty Trust, and many other charities serving the public good; were systematically ‘picked-off’ by the Commission and deregistered. Liberty Trust has been the only deregistered charity to have successfully challenged the Commission’s deregistration decision in the High Court. The Trust was reinstated as a charity on 15 April 2010. [Read more…]