The crisis engulfing private school Cranbrook is set to escalate with the outgoing headmaster, Nicholas Sampson, threatening legal action against the governing council.
Sources close to the matter, who could not speak publicly, say Sampson has engaged high-profile lawyers to represent him, as the dispute between him and the school council intensifies. Lovell, the school council president, released a statement on March 8 saying the current board had become aware for “the first time of allegations of an extremely concerning past conduct matter involving a current senior school teacher at Cranbrook”.
The teacher wrote to the former student when she was a young adult. Sampson was informed about the teacher’s emails in 2015 by the previous school and The Association of Independent Schools NSW investigated the allegations at Cranbrook’s request. It is understood there was no reportable conduct found, and those findings were upheld by the NSW Ombudsman.
Cranbrook last week announced an external review into the school’s handling of serious child safety concerns raised over the past 14 years, with the investigation to be led by Amanda Bell, the former principal of Brisbane Girls Grammar and The Women’s College at Sydney University.