Former teacher has no case to answer

A 49-year-old former primary school head teacher was acquitted of a charge of indecent assault by the Tavua Magistrates Court yesterday.

It was alleged Ramesh Chand Raman assaulted a 31-year-old woman while she worked as a house girl in his quarters when he was the head of Tavua Primary School.

The court heard that on the day before the alleged incident occurred, the complainant went to drop her children’s lunch off at the school, and was approached by the accused to do house work in his quarters.

The complainant alleged that on the day of the incident, she was doing the house work when the accused came from behind and groped her bosom.

She said she screamed, pushed the accused away and told him never to touch her in that manner again and continued with the house work but he came back later and did the same thing.

The matter was reported to the police and two men who worked as labourers for the school, while being interviewed by Police, said they recalled hearing a scream but did not go to investigate it.

During his caution interview, Mr Raman said there must have been a conspiracy against him because there had been issues concerning the two labourers’ work at the school while he was head teacher.

The matter proceeded to trial and following the conclusion of the prosecution’s case, defence lawyer Jitendra Reddy submitted there was no case to answer.

Tavua Magistrate Thushara Thennakoon yesterday upheld Mr Reddy’s submission and acquitted the former head teacher of the indecent assault charge.