Another Bad Teacher Goes Down: Sydney Dance Teacher Grant Davies Charged with 37 more Sex Offences
Grant Davies, the owner of RG Dance and a prominent face to many a parent wanting to make their children dancers par excellence was arrested in May after police discovered many nude pictures of girls with him.
He has received yet another shock after being charged with a racked up offence count of 37, making a total of 47 charges against him.
The entire fiasco came into light when his wife Lisa Ricketts found inappropriate messages he had sent to a girl. She then copied the same onto a thumb drive and took it and his laptop to the police.
The police and authorities scanned the laptop and found offensive material - tantamount to child abuse offences and child grooming. He was arrested on May 17th at a bowling alley in North Strathfield.
He was initially arrested for four charges relating to the product of child abuse material as well as allegedly grooming two underage girls for sex by sending them indecent pictures of himself over the Internet. Later at his very first appearance in court he was charged with an additional six counts including aggravated sexual and indecent assault against a child. These charges hark back to almost ten years and involve a male victim, one of his students.
Now he has been charged with 37 more offences, all committed between 2004 and 2013 toward children between the ages of 9 and 14.
The new charges include 14 counts of aggravated sexual assault, 18 counts of aggravated indecent assault and four counts of aggravated acts of indecency. Prosecutors seem to have piles of evidence including a 60-page statement from a victim. Grant has not applied for bail and instead will appear in court via an audio-visual link.
Shockingly, court documents also reveal that one of the girls that Davies allegedly groomed was with the "acquiescence" of her mother, with whom he also appeared to be having an affair. In 2007 such allegations and rumors had surfaced but no action was taken.
The RGDance Studio has now been shut with Grant's partner and sister, Rebecca declaring to have cut off all contact from him and citing the unviability of the business. However the Australian dance community is taking steps to ensure that a shameful episode like this does not happen again.