Who is Darren Clinckett? Teacher made student, 15, 'shave his pubic region', laughed when 'oral sex' made her throw up
After suffering for years, a woman has opened up about sexual abuse after being groomed by a pedophile teacher.
The woman, whose name has not been revealed, was just 15 years old when she met Design and Technology teacher Darren Clinckett at a school in Redlands, in south-east Brisbane in 2008. She was a young schoolgirl who had then been juggling bullying taunts from her peers and discord at home, when the Queensland teacher took advantage of her vulnerable position and began to groom her, reported the Daily Mail.
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Who is Darren Clinckett?
Darren Clinckett is a Design and Technology teacher at a school in Redlands, Brisbane's south-east in 2008, according to Daily Mail.
His relationship with the schoolgirl started with an exchange of notes, and five months later Clinckett had gained Sarah’s trust, Courier-Mail reported. He went on to convince her family that he would arrange for their daughter to be accepted into a church family, following which he secretly transferred her to his Redland Bay unit.
He sent notes back and forth to girl students
“I noticed that he had been sending notes back and forth to girl students in the classroom and I thought this was just his way to get to know each student,” the woman said. “So I sent him one saying, ‘Hi how are you?’”
“Something about him seemed like I could trust him,” she said in the Courier Mail report. “It took a long time for me to realize what he had done.” The unnamed woman dropped out of high school and Clinckett forbade her from ever leaving the unit. He even set up a false bedroom to hide her when visitors came over.
'It made me throw up and he would laugh'
“Everything was locked up, the windows were closed, doors were closed, blinds were closed, I wasn't allowed to open the door for anyone,” the woman said. “The first night I moved in with him, he made me shave his pubic region and masturbate him and perform oral sex on him," she said, adding: “The taste and texture and smell of it made me throw up … and he would laugh.”
The woman became pregnant when she was only 16. Now at 23, she admits that it took eight years since she met her perpetrator for her to finally find the courage to leave Clinckett. She left him in 2016, following which she reportedly filed a formal complaint with the Queensland College of Teachers and issued a statement on behalf of the police.
Clinckett, mother, made teen sign affidavits
The schoolteacher defended himself by telling officials that the relationship began when Sarah was 16 years old. Years earlier, he and his mother had asked the woman to sign affidavits, stating that the relationship had not started when she was a minor. The officers did not take the complaint any further, and the woman had almost lost hope of ever bringing Clinckett to justice. Bill McIntyre, senior constable of the Wynnum Child Protection and Investigation Unit took up the case and gathered enough evidence to throw him behind bars.
Clinckett was reportedly deregistered as a teacher in 2019 and sentenced to three and a half years in prison in March 2021 after pleading guilty to having a relationship with a child and nine cases of indecent treatment of a minor.