The council has today “unreservedly” apologised to the victims, schools and wider profession for its serious and repeated failings.
“These failures are unacceptable and must not be repeated,” the council’s governing body chairman, Patrick Walsh, told the Herald.
The report, released today, canvasses an astonishing series of missed opportunities that allowed the now disgraced teacher to work at 12 public schools and several private education providers in the years after he was convicted for masturbating in a public spa pool.
Fisher was able to hide his 2002 convictions under the Clean Slate Act when he was first registered as a teacher in 2011.
However, he voluntarily disclosed his offending to Teaching Council staff after police issued a “red flag” warning during a criminal vetting check in July 2014.
It can now be revealed that the red flag related to “substantiated behaviour” after Fisher was allegedly caught masturbating in a car near a school in 2010.
The police warning, issued while Fisher was teaching illegally at Stratford High School, urged the council not to allow him unsupervised access to children.
But rather than immediately seek further information from police or Fisher, warn the school about police concerns, or prosecute Fisher for teaching without a current practising certificate, the council did nothing for eight months.
“In light of the obvious safety consideration, speed was obviously of the essence,” Katherine Anderson, KC, wrote.
“It was plainly concerning and urgent information which demanded an immediate response.”
There was no explanation in the 870-page council file she reviewed for its inaction. Anderson said the council “does not appear to have turned its mind to the nature and extent of any risk to child safety” during its lengthy period of inactivity.
“The obvious child safety concerns simply did not feature as a relevant consideration,” Anderson said, describing this as a “serious regulatory failure”.
“My impression is that the red stamp issue was put into the too hard basket. This is the opposite of how a regulator focused on student safety should respond.”
Council pulls ministerial briefings after damning review
Anderson was commissioned to investigate the case after a Herald investigation last year revealed Fisher’s background and the questionable actions of the regulatory body charged with keeping students safe.
Education Minister Erica Stanford said in February she feared children could be at risk because of mistakes at the council. She called for an independent KC probe to check if child protection failures had allowed potential sexual predators to access classrooms.
Fisher was jailed in August 2025 for four years and five months after he admitted indecently assaulting nine young girls at EduExperts, a Crimson Consulting-“powered” after-school tutoring brand where he worked from 2019.
He was also convicted of making objectionable videos of children over more than a decade. One of the videos was recorded at Stratford High.
After the Herald’s reporting last year, former Teaching Council chief executive Lesley Hoskin sent two urgent briefings to Stanford about the scandal.
The briefings warned that “weaknesses in the system” that allowed Fisher to dodge vetting procedures more than a decade ago still existed.
The council maintained it did nothing wrong in its vetting of Fisher, and that it would have made the same decision today, given information restrictions as they currently stood.
However, after receiving Anderson’s report, the council’s new chief executive, Sean McKinley, wrote to Stanford this month to formally withdraw the two briefings “in their entirety”.
“They should therefore no longer be treated or relied upon as representing the council’s current advice or position,” McKinley wrote.
Litany of missed opportunities
Anderson found the legislative and regulatory setting had not limited the council’s ability to take action.
It had ample opportunity to cancel Fisher’s registration under “good character” grounds and remove him from classrooms after concerns were flagged in the 2014 police vet, but chose not to act.
In December 2014, Fisher admitted illegally working without a current practising certificate for at least six months.
He also disclosed details of his 2002 indecency offending to the council in March 2015, wrongly assuming the pool incident was the basis for the police red flag.
After the council belatedly sought information about the red flag warning, police provided details of the 2010 masturbation incident, but also confirmed Fisher had protested his innocence and was never charged.
Despite being in receipt of this information, the council recertified Fisher after receiving a clear police vet in early 2016.
Anderson said the council appeared to believe the subsequent clean police vet “extinguished” the red stamp issue and Fisher’s indecency disclosure but without seeking legal advice on this “crucial aspect”.
There were other missed opportunities, Anderson found.
The Stratford High principal initially indicated he did not support Fisher being granted full registration in 2014, before reversing his position six months later. No one from the council contacted the principal for an explanation on the change of heart.
The Herald earlier reported that Fisher was the subject of an employment investigation around this time following a parent’s complaint, which Fisher failed to disclose in his application.
Two mandatory reports were also filed about Fisher – one from the principal of Otamatea High School in 2015, and another from the Wesley College principal in 2017.
The latter followed alarming complaints about Fisher’s in-class behaviour.
Students claimed he used swear words, talked sexually about girls, described his experiences in the “porn industry” and stated he liked to watch girls riding on horseback. He also showed students photos of illegal drugs on his phone and made an “inappropriate sexual gesture intimating sex”.
The mandatory report was promptly investigated by the council’s Complaints Assessment Committee and later referred to the Disciplinary Tribunal.
But in what Anderson described as a concerning pattern, the case “languished” amid unacceptable delays.
Fisher, who had long-since resigned from Wesley College, was eventually found to have committed serious misconduct and censured. However, the tribunal decision was not published until August 2021 – four-and-a-half years after the events in question.
Until that time, prospective employers searching the council’s online register would have seen that Fisher was fully registered and certified.
Anderson’s report notes that EduExperts relied on Fisher’s certification when employing him to the position where he would later sexually offend.
The case highlighted a failure to triage or prioritise high-risk cases involving child safety.
Shocked minister hits out at ‘egregious’ findings
Stanford told the Herald she was shocked by the report. The “egregious” findings highlighted more than just “individual malpractice” and confirmed her long-standing concerns about the council’s governance.
“This report reveals so much more than just incompetence, but a deeply ingrained culture of protecting practitioners rather than children and standards of the profession.”
She said the council had prioritised enhancing the mana of teachers over child safety. This had ultimately damaged the profession “by allowing people who were not fit to be teachers into classrooms with our children”.
“This man went on to abuse children and the Teaching Council could have removed his practising certificate 10 years earlier.”
Stanford said that, while shocking, the Fisher case was not an isolated one. Teachers, principals and families had been badly let down.
She said the findings vindicated changes she had implemented, which included removing the council’s independence and replacing elected members with government appointees to strengthen the governing board’s rigour and expertise.
“They completely misunderstood their purpose. They spent thousands and thousands of dollars on fancy ads to promote teachers … when they didn’t have the skills or people to protect children and to investigate these cases.
“They have brought the profession into disrepute through systems failures, poor governance and poor regulation.”
Stanford said the Government would now tweak the Clean Slate Act to prevent anyone applying for a teaching job being able to hide their convictions.
She has also written to Walsh setting out her expectations for the agency around immediate changes in the face of “repeated and serious failures”.
Her letter directs the council to make child safety its “top priority”, ensure no teacher is working with children without certification, and for high-risk cases to be “identified early and progressed urgently”.
“The Government must be confident that the council is carrying out its duties competently and, above all, keeping children safe. Parents, teachers and the public should expect nothing less.”
Ministry of Education policy deputy secretary Andy Jackson said the case was awful for victims and deeply concerning.
“Everything that could have gone wrong in the Fisher case seems to have gone wrong. It’s clear that a lot of things at the council now need to be fixed in terms of how they do their job – certainly around child safety.”
Jackson said the council had “always had” the tools it needed to do its job.
“We’re working very closely with them to get them to improve their performance as a child safety regulator.”
Teaching Council apologises to victims and profession
Walsh said the council accepted unequivocally the report and its findings.
It found a range of interventions had been available to the council that could and should have been used to exclude Fisher from teaching after he gained registration in 2011.
“Failure to do so resulted in Mr Fisher being employed in education settings and harming victims in those settings,” Walsh said.
“The council apologises unreservedly to the victims of Mr Fisher for its failings. The council apologises to the schools and communities affected. The council apologises to the wider profession.
“These failures are unacceptable and must not be repeated.”
Walsh said organisation-wide changes were underway to address the issues identified.
The governing council had been refreshed and a new CEO appointed. Both had an “unwavering commitment to child safety” and ”decisive and robust regulation of the teaching profession”.
The council was implementing a detailed action plan to ensure accountability and prioritise child safeguarding.
Anyone who wishes to make a report or speak with police about Fisher or other previous incidents of child abuse can dial 105 from anywhere in New Zealand; or submit a report through the NZ Police 105 website at https://www.police.govt.nz/use-105
SEXUAL ABUSE OR ASSAULTS – WHERE TO GET HELP:
The Safe to talk sexual harm helpline is available free 24/7:• Call 0800 044 334• Text 4334• Email support@safetotalk.nz• Resources, info and webchat atwww.safetotalk.nz
If it’s an emergency and you feel that you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
You can also visit the police website for information about reporting sexual crime. http://www.police.govt.nz/advice/victims/victims-rape-or-sexual-assault.
Lane Nichols is a senior journalist and Auckland Desk Editor for the New Zealand Herald with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry.
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