STATE OF TASMANIA v DANIEL JOHN DAVIS 18 SEPTEMBER 2026
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Daniel Davis, you are to be sentenced on your plea of guilty to persistent sexual abuse of a young person. This crime is committed if you, during the indictment period, committed an unlawful sexual act against the victim on at least three separate occasions. In this case, the unlawful sexual acts occurred from towards the end of 2021 and continued August 2022. You were a teacher at a district high school in northern Tasmania. You were aged 32 and 33. The crime was committed against a girl who was a student at the school. For most of the time she was 15 but turned 16 in mid-2022. She was in grades 9 and 10 and you were one of her class teachers.
You became close to the complainant when she was in grade 9. She told you she was going through a difficult time, and you told her that you were depressed about your marriage partly because it was unsatisfactory sexually. You began to send the complainant emails, developed feelings for her and told her that you loved her. You took the opportunity at school to touch her by rubbing her thigh or bottom. You tried to kiss her and expressed disappointment when she did not reciprocate. The eight identified unlawful sexual acts which then occurred were all indecent assaults except for one occasion which may amount to an indecent act directed at a young person. The first four occasions were in the latter part of 2021, when she was towards the end of grade nine. On the first occasion you asked her to an office to collect marker pens. You tried to kiss her on the lips but she turned so that you kissed her cheek. You then hugged her. On the second occasion you were alone with her in a storeroom and kissed her on the lips while holding her face or back. On the third occasion you kissed her on the lips in a classroom. On the fourth occasion you were alone with her in an office in the gym during a physical education lesson when you kissed her.
The fifth occasion happened during the first term of grade 10 in 2022. You were in a classroom when she came in. You pushed her against a door and pressed your body against hers. I will treat it as an assertive sexual advance and not the use of force to overcome resistance. You had an erection. You put your arms around her, felt her bottom and kissed her with an open mouth and tongue. You told her you really loved her. On the sixth occasion you were in a storeroom with her at lunch time and kissed her on the lips. The seventh occasion was the one said to amount to an indecent act directed at a young person. You sent her a photograph of yourself in your underpants massaging your thigh with a massage gun. You do not accept the assertion that you had an erection, but I regard that issue, and indeed whether it amounted to an unlawful sexual act at all, as immaterial to sentence when all of the other acts are taken into account.
In April and May 2022 you began to meet with the complainant in your car after school, when you would kiss and touch. She provided detail of one such occasion on or about 24 April 2022. You asked if she had her period. When she said ‘No” you suggested you should have brought a condom. At your request she straddled you. You thrusted your penis towards her vagina, although you were both fully clothed. You tried to kiss her but she turned away. You stopped when she became uncomfortable and moved off you.
On 1 September 2022 you were stood down from your position as a result of a disclosure made by a different former student. You resigned on 26 September 2022. Once the complainant became aware of this, she told her mother and a friend something of what had been happening to her. Despite initially not wanting to report the matter to the police, she participated in an interview on 15 November 2022 and made relatively full disclosure of your conduct. Your phone was seized and examined, and emails and images were discovered which s corroborated the complainant’s complaint, although the emails you exchanged with her had been deleted and were not recovered.
You were not arrested until almost two years later on 27 September 2024. You are now aged 37.
You have no relevant prior convictions. However, that must not be taken into account because, had it been otherwise, you would not have been employed as a teacher and you would not have been in a position to offend. It counts in your favour that you pleaded guilty to this charge. It has avoided the need for a trial, facilitated justice, and, most of all, spared the complainant the additional trauma of having to give evidence. You will likely never work as a teacher, or in any similar position, again. However you brought that on yourself.
You have two children now aged 12 and 9. The circumstances of your marriage to which reference was made earlier are terribly unfortunate. In October 2021 your wife was diagnosed with an inherited degenerative neurological condition. There is no cure and the condition is fatal. Even at the relevant time you assisted your wife with her daily needs and performed most of the parenting obligations. You were struggling to cope and became depressed. In 2024 your wife began living in a nursing home. As a result, you have sole care of the children. You have a supportive new partner and she is pregnant. In the intervening period you have sought help from your general practitioner and a psychologist. You were diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety and have undergone therapy with some success. That is relevant to the prospect of rehabilitation. However, although it was put on your behalf that your judgment at the time was affected, there is no evidence that you suffered from a mental health condition at the time which caused or contributed to the crime, or is otherwise relevant to sentence.
In this case I accept that the potential effect of your imprisonment on your children is a relevant sentencing factor. They are already dealing with their mother’s situation. Their welfare is also a matter which is likely to result in imprisonment weighing more heavily on you. However, you told the complainant not to tell anyone because of the potential effect on your own children and because your life would be ruined. It is thus very clear that you knew what you were doing was wrong and what the consequences may be. The dominant factor in sentencing for matters of this nature is the protection of children, and for that reason factors personal to you and your family must carry less weight. The prohibition of sexual acts with children is founded on the presumption of harm. The complainant’s victim impact statement amply demonstrates the serious and long lasting psychological damage which can be done by crimes of this nature. It is relevant that the unlawful sexual acts were indecent assaults such as kissing and hugging and touching over clothing. This is not a case involving risk of pregnancy or transmission of communicable disease because there were no penetrative acts. However, your intention went beyond that. You told her in emails and in person that you wanted to have sex with her. At least the occasion in the office in the gym occurred when there were other students nearby, although it is not suggested that any of them saw or heard.
Most importantly, your conduct was a shocking breach of the trust placed in you by the complainant, her parents, your employer and fellow teachers. The community is entitled to expect that children and young persons who are sent to school will not be the subject of sexual advances by teachers. There was a very significant discrepancy in age, maturity and power, and you were emotionally manipulative. The complainant was vulnerable by reason of her personal circumstances. You were one of her class teachers. She feared, with some justification as it turned out, that unless she did what you wanted you would be unhappy with her and stop helping her at school. You did not stop offending until it became known. The complainant did show the emotional maturity to complain herself, but only after she became aware that someone else already had. Her consent or acquiescence is not mitigating. In any event, by reason of her age she could not give lawful consent to your sexual touching. She was in your care and under your supervision and authority. Your duty was to protect her rather than impose yourself on her in a sexual way. None of the difficult circumstances you faced at home excuse or justify your conduct. I have already addressed the applicable aggravating factors in the Sentencing Act, s 11A. I record those which apply are (a), (da) and, to a lesser extent, (d).
I was asked to consider home detention, but such a sentence does not sufficiently address the very strong need for punishment, condemnation and general deterrence. Others in your position who may be tempted to act as you did, must clearly understand what the consequences will be.
You are convicted on the indictment. Because of the nature of your offending I am not satisfied that you do not pose a risk of committing a reportable offence within the meaning of that term in the Community Protection (Offender Reporting) Act 2005 in the future. I make an order directing that the Registrar cause your name to be placed on the Register and that you comply with the reporting obligations under the Act for five years from your release. You are sentenced to imprisonment for two and a half years from today. I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served half of that term.