Published: 23 March 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
FOR 12 YEARS, Neil Lennie was a figure of authority at Melbourne’s Mount Scopus Memorial College. But his thin veneer of respectability has been revealed as a con, leaving many former students stunned and upset. In the Victorian County Court last Thursday, Lennie, 72, was sentenced to three months’ jail for his deception at Mount Scopus, but this was suspended, meaning he will not spend any time behind bars unless he reoffends in the next year.
Lennie, who had pleaded guilty to four counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception, was given a community correction order for misleading another three prestigious Melbourne schools, Caulfield Grammar, Haileybury College and Overnewton Anglican College. In sentencing him, judge Patricia Riddell spared him jail, saying the fake teacher caused “no loss” to any schools or students.
Despite having no formal qualifications as a teacher, Lennie worked at these schools before being revealed as a fraud in 2008 when the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) uncovered discrepancies in his records.
In 2015 he was convicted and fined $8000 for teaching while unregistered. The VIT alerted police, who conducted further investigations. The County Court was told Lennie used his father’s teacher registration number to obtain employment at three state high schools in the late 1960s and early 1970s, at a time when teaching did not require tertiary qualifications.
Lennie began teaching at Mount Scopus in 1976, falsely claiming he had a degree from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. He later moved to Haileybury College and then to Caulfield Grammar, where he was headmaster, and Overnewton Anglican Community College. Over his career it was estimated he earned almost $850,000.
Glowing character references from nine former students were presented to the court, including Professor Sharon Lewin, one of Australia’s leading experts in infectious diseases and a scientist on the frontline of Australia’s fight against COVID-19, and prominent actor/director Pip Mushin.
Three former students interviewed by The Jewish Independent were shocked by the revelations.
Close friends Naomi Layton and Danielle Opat were classmates at Mount Scopus between 1980-85. Speaking to The Jewish Independent, they were effusive in their praise of Lennie’s teaching methods.
He was Layton’s mathematics teacher in Year 9 and her marks improved dramatically under his tutelage. “He gave me such confidence, he was amazing,” Layton said. “I wished I’d had him right through high school because up until then I felt things didn’t go as well for me in maths.”
Lennie taught Opat in Year 7 and she remembered him as a friendly, kind man who held himself to a high standard. “He was very professional and could discipline students, but he knew how to have fun as well,” Opat said. “He must have been very good at what he did to be the headmaster at Caulfield Grammar for so long.”
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Ian Barabash described Lennie “as an incredibly bright guy”. “He was a very good and fair teacher,” Barabash said. “He had a brilliant mind and was a very good communicator.” He said Lennie, who taught him mathematics in Year 11 and pure maths in Year 12, appeared to work hard to help his students achieve as much as they could. “Most would rate him one of the best teachers they had at Mount Scopus.”
But Natalie Gold, who was in the same year as Barabash, Layton and Opat at Mount Scopus, had a different opinion of Lennie as a teacher and person. Gold, a student in Lennie’s social studies class, described him as a “nasty man”. “He hated me and never left me in his classroom for a minute,” she recalled. “He always put me out in the corridor.” She noted Lennie dressed differently to the other teachers and was “very dapper”.
For Layton, however, Lennie “was one of the best teachers at Mount Scopus, if not the best. He gave me a lot of confidence in the subject and you just felt you could do anything. “I had no idea and to be honest, did it really matter? My teachers afterwards were terrible and they obviously had qualifications.
“He was just lovely and very professional, that’s why I can’t rationalise or understand it. I’m still gobsmacked and devastated.” Opat, who became a teacher, admits Lennie did the wrong thing, yet feels sad he had to lie about his qualifications. “Who did he harm? In my mind there was no harm done to me. He just was caught out,” she said.
While Barabash conceded Lennie committed fraud, he had empathy for his former teacher. “In my eyes all he did was teach kids … and help them.”
A decision on the pecuniary penalty order for Lennie will be made at a later date.
