Ex-NRL referee Gavin Morris avoids jail for assaulting Indigenous pupils at NT school

A former NRL referee has been spared jail after abusing his position of trust as a school principal by putting Indigenous students into choke holds and painfully twisting their ears.

Gavin Morris was found guilty of four counts of aggravated assault and on Thursday was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment fully suspended for two years on condition he be of good behaviour.

The 47-year-old’s trial in Alice Springs Local Court heard that during his stint as Yipirinya School headmaster he had put misbehaving boys into choke holds and twisted their ears, causing them pain and fear.

In sentencing Morris, Judge Anthony Hopkins said his offending reflected a sense of entitlement and willingness to interfere with the safety of children entrusted to his care.

“Your actions were a grave and serious breach of that trust. You harmed children that it was your duty to protect.”

The judge noted Morris’s apparent lack of remorse and his inability to control his impulses to anger when frustrated and a willingness to act violently on those impulses.

Gavin Morris at the school with former Chief Minister Eva Lawler.

Morris’s offending also harmed the wider community which had a deep interest in supporting the provision of education pathways for Aboriginal children in particular, he said.

A conviction and suspended prison term would almost certainly end Morris’s teaching career and capacity to work with children and young people, Judge Hopkins noted.

But he said sending Morris to jail would be counter-productive.

“Requiring you to serve a period of that sentence in full-time custody would do little to achieve the purposes of specific deterrence and community protection.

“It would certainly be counter-productive for your prospects of rehabilitation,” the judge said.

Morris was appointed principal at the independent school for Indigenous children in 2022.

Reports emerged of him assaulting male students aged between eight and 13 in 2023, sparking a police investigation.

He was found guilty in October of four out of five counts of aggravated assault.

Morris was convicted of pulling a 12-year-old boy from a playground fight and putting him in a headlock that hurt him, constricted his breathing and made him feel afraid.

He also grabbed two young boys by the ears and painfully twisted them after they made a mess in a childcare centre.

Morris was also found guilty of choking a boy who had accessed a locked school hall with another student.

Morris called them “little black c***s”, with the boy saying he felt afraid he could not breathe.

He was found not guilty of a fifth charge in which he allegedly choked an 11-year-old boy in a classroom, with student witnesses saying Morris called them “black dogs”.

Morris is appealing his guilty verdicts.

As an NRL referee, Morris officiated 98 NRL games from 2010-15 including two finals clashes.

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