Nicholas Visser: Teacher jailed for persistent student sex abuse gets longer sentence after State appeals term

A former teacher who persistently sexually abused a teenage student on school grounds has copped more jail time after the State appealed his original term as not long enough. After a District Court trial, Nicholas Visser was convicted of 14 offences and handed a jail term of four and a half years, with parole eligibility after two years and six months. But on Thursday, the WA Court of Appeal upped his term to seven years, with eligibility for parole after five years. It comes one month after Visser lost his bid to overturn his conviction. He was 28 when he first started offending against the 15-year-old student in 2019, molesting her multiple times over eight and a half months, having “tested the water” by friending her on Snapchat. The physical education and health teacher also forced her to touch him - on one occasion confiscating a ball she had been playing with, placing it down his shorts and telling her to retrieve it. He also sent her indecent photos and videos of himself — continuing to do so when she said she did not want them - and repeatedly saying her name in one vile piece of footage. The appeal justices found the original sentence “fails to have regard to the seriousness of what the respondent did, its repetition and persistence, and the respondent’s abuse of his position of authority”. “It also fails to properly reflect the impact of the offending on the victim,” they wrote in their judgment. On top of the sexual abuse, Visser embarrassed the teen by making her tie up his shoelaces, fetch him a chair and do push-ups in front of her classmates. He also threatened her with detention, leaving her feeling confused, and told her to “deny, deny, deny” any inappropriate conduct after he was suspended from duties. The appeal judges said it appeared from the sentencing remarks that Visser’s good prospects of rehabilitation and favourable antecedents had led to the “erroneously lenient” original term. “He knew that what he was doing was wrong,” they said. “The fact that he is a man of prior good character is ... of limited weight. “The respondent continues to deny his guilt and is without remorse.” But it appeared that his risk of reoffending was low, they said, and he would be supported in the community upon his release from prison, noting his wife stood by him.