By Sarah McPhee
A Sydney English teacher joked about putting a schoolgirl in the boot of his car, commented on her body and once pushed her against a wall, the former student has told a court.
Vasilious “Bill” Kafataris, 55, is on trial in Parramatta District Court after pleading not guilty to 17 charges including grooming and sexual intercourse without consent. The charges relate to four female students at three different schools in Sydney’s west and south-west between 2000 and 2021.
Former English teacher Vasilious Kafataris leaves Parramatta District Court on the first day of his trial.Credit: AAP/Miklos Bolza
One of the four complainants, who is the subject of a charge of common assault, gave evidence on Tuesday that Kafataris would ask, “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” and she would reply, “Have you seen the boys in this school?”
The now 20-year-old woman said her teacher’s replies would differ but included “talking about how special I am” or complimenting her thighs, chest and ankles.
She said Kafataris parked in the same spot at school each day and “would joke around about how he could put me in the boot of the car and just take me back to Bankstown”.
“It was a regular joke that he would say … throughout year 11 and 12,” the complainant said.
In her opening address on Monday, Crown prosecutor Georgina Namat said Kafataris had a unit in Bankstown, where he was arrested in May 2021.
The Crown is seeking to establish Kafataris had a tendency to have a sexual interest in female students at high schools where he worked, and to act on that sexual interest.
The complainant claimed that on one occasion, Kafataris had asked her words to the effect of, “Would you be strong enough to defend yourself?” and then pushed her up against the wall of a school hallway “pretty forcefully” with both hands on her shoulders.
This lasted two to three seconds until she “managed to push him off”.
“I panicked and I kind of blanked out in the moment,” she said.
The prosecutor asked: “Did you consent for Mr Kafataris to push you against the wall?”
“No,” the woman replied.
She claimed a second incident occurred while in Kafataris’ classroom with her best friend, when the teacher walked towards her, “getting quite close”, before her friend poked him in the back with a pen.
“We had a conversation, how I mentioned that was ‘creepy’,” the complainant said. “She [my friend] said ‘Yes, that’s why I poked him with the pen’.”
Under cross-examination, the woman said she had liked Kafataris and would regularly contact him, including via text and asking when he had a free period at school, but also agreed with the suggestion he “creeped” her out.
Defence barrister Rory McCrudden asked: “You never tell anybody about your fear?”
“No,” the woman said.
McCrudden asked: “Because you’re telling lies?”
“I disagree,” she said.
The complainant agreed that help had been available through other teachers and that the principal would not have tolerated such behaviour.
McCrudden suggested: “The reason you do nothing is because nothing happened.”
“I disagree,” the woman replied.
She was taken to messages in which she asked Kafataris, “Oi, when are you off class?” and said “ha ha f---ng loser”.
“Why did you speak in such terms to a man you feared?” McCrudden asked.
“Because we were almost on a friendship level, you can still fear someone that you’re friends with,” the woman replied.
The trial continues before Judge Craig Everson.
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