Claim principal 'imported' students

Peter Fountain

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An Auckland principal allegedly "imported" young Korean schoolchildren to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in a school scam bringing the children into New Zealand illegally, wiping them from school records and pocketeing their fees.

Peter Grant Fountain, 58, was investigated by Ministry of Education auditors and is now facing 14 charges of forgery and improper use of documents, each carrying a maximum sentence of between seven and 10 years in jail. The charges date back to 2005 and early 2006 when Fountain was principal of Orewa Primary School, a decile eight state school north of Auckland.

Fountain's "carefully orchestrated" scam, sources said, involved dozens of Korean children aged 10 and younger whose families are understood to have paid $2000 per term in school fees and a further $200 per week for homestays.

It is believed Fountain kept at least part of this cash, along with the $900 levy schools are required to pay to the ministry for each international student.

One source said wads of cash would change hands in the school office and Fountain had made "six figures" from his scam. "An awful lot of money has been involved," the source said. "It's not very pleasant."

The children were too young to be allowed to enter New Zealand alone as international students, but it is understood Fountain dodged this rule by using an immigration consultant to bring them in and claim she was their legal guardian. This woman would keep the children for a few weeks "until they get past that stage of crying for their parents", then they were placed with Kiwi families.

Some of the children stayed at the school for just one term but others stayed for a whole year, sources said.

Fountain allegedly made them "invisible kids" by having teachers wipe their names off class attendance lists. Some classes had five or six of these children at once, a source said, and teachers wanted to include them, so on class lists they wrote their names on stick-on notes that could be pulled off later.

Four of the charges against Fountain are for causing teachers to delete these children's names from their class lists. Another four are for providing those re-written lists to ministry officials; the other six charges are for altering reports made to the ministry.

One source said the children were "beautifully" looked after by their Kiwi homestay families and their parents in Korea "had no idea... not a clue in the world" that their children were here illegally.

But the source said Fountain "caused a lot of heartache and a lot of hurt amongst a lot of people".

A second source said Fountain had used "systematic bullying" to get teachers to go along with his scam. "We don't sleep with it easily."

Police did not return calls and the Education Ministry refused to comment.

It was not known how Fountain's alleged scam came to light, but in mid-2006 an acting principal took over his job and he officially left Orewa Primary School in April 2007. He is still registered as a teacher although his practising certificate expired in March. It is understood Fountain worked as a relief teacher in Auckland before leaving New Zealand to work at a school in the Phillipines.

Charges were laid two weeks ago and Fountain is due back in New Zealand next month for a pre-depositions hearing. He could not be contacted last week.

John Clark, Group Manager Resourcing for the Education Ministry, said its auditors routinely checked school roll returns to make sure they were accurate.

"If the auditors suspect the roll return may have been falsified, the matter is fully investigated. However, these cases are extremely rare."

Since 1997, only two other cases have gone to court.

- © Fairfax NZ News