A former English teacher who filmed sex acts with a female student and boasted about it online has been sentenced to six years and 11 months for his crimes.
Troy Ollis faced the County Court of Victoria on Tuesday after pleading guilty to charges including sexual penetration of a 16-year-old under his care or supervision, intentionally producing child abuse material and possessing child abuse material.
The 35-year-old taught at MacKillop College at Werribee when he first met the student and they became close, sending each other emails on the school system.
County Court Judge Paul Higham said there was a unique kind of trust between pupil and teacher because young people were inherently vulnerable.
He said personal interests and desires must never be permitted to enter into, or “pervert, corrupt or corrode” the relationship between teachers and students.
“Boundaries were crossed, and you betrayed the trust placed in you in the service of your own desires,” Higham said in his sentencing remarks.
Ollis told the girl she was his most promising student, and they continued to talk on messaging apps and conversations using Google Docs. He deleted those messages and later bought the teenager a phone to hide what was happening from her parents.
The offending took place over 3½ months at his home, hotels and in his car and included acts of strangulation.
He would frequently film the victim and took photographs of her naked. In one of the filmed sex acts, Ollis said: “I hope no one ever sees this video.”
The married father was only caught when Border Force discovered the material as he returned home from a family trip to Tanzania in January 2025. When officers found the material in a hidden folder on his phone, Ollis said: “My life is over now, isn’t it?”
While on holiday with his family, Ollis shared child abuse material of the victim on WhatsApp to a third party in Kenya, boasting he had more videos in his possession.
Officials also discovered Ollis was a member of various Telegram chat groups with child abuse material on them.
Higham said the former teacher abused the student “because you simply gained sexual satisfaction from it”.
“Instead of holding the images of your intimacy in a private place … you shared an image, the accompanying word … made it clear that you not only abused the trust of a child who was under your authority, but reduced her supposed maturity, love and sexual preparedness to a trophy, a conquest of which you boasted.”
The judge said this was the validation Ollis obtained from the acts.
The former teacher must spend at least four years and two months in jail and will be a registered sex offender for life.
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Caroline Schelle is an education reporter, and joined The Age in 2022. She previously covered courts at AAP.Connect via X or email.
