Port Stephens Teacher Charged With Alleged Sexual Grooming

BY JESSICA ROUSE

An employee at a school in Port Stephens has been charged over alleged child grooming offences.

Investigations under Strike Force Minnamorra started in June to investigate a number of explicit messages and phone calls being exchanged between a female teacher and a male student in 2015.

Police will allege a number of phone calls and messages were sent between a 50-year-old employee and a 15-year-old male student.

Detectives also discovered a second student, aged 16, was involved in sending and receiving messages and phone calls with the same woman.

At about 3:30pm yesterday the 50-year-old was interviewed and later charged at Raymond Terrace Police Station with groom child for unlawful sexual activity, use carriage service to groom child under 16 years for sex and use carriage service to menace/harass/offend.

She was given conditional bail and will front Raymond Terrace Local Court on November 6.

The woman is no longer employed by the school.

Police on the hunt for a man who robbed a taxi driver in Raymond Terrace

BY JESSICA ROUSE

Police are still on the hunt for a man who held up a taxi driver in Raymond Terrace last week.

Just after 6pm last Saturday (15th July 2017) a 33-year-old taxi driver collected a man on Maitland Road in Mayfield.

The taxi got as far as Morgan Crescent in Raymond Terrace when the man allegedly pulled out a knife and held it to the taxi driver's throat and demanded cash.

The driver gave the man cash and he then left.

The man was last seen running in a westerly direction along Morgan Street and is described as being aged in his 30s, approximately 177cm tall, of medium build with a beard and a tattoo on the right side of his neck.

Anyone with any information is being urged to contact officers at Raymond Terrace Police Station as investigations continue.

Police want to speak with this man.

One of Australia's most wanted arrested in the Hunter

BY JESSICA ROUSE

One of Australia's most wanted men has been arrested in Nelson Bay this morning.

The 42-year-old was arrested by police from the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad at about 11:30am.

He was placed on Crime Stoppers most wanted list in 2016 after he was granted bail in 2014 charged with alleged drug-related offences and allegedly directing a criminal group, but failed to comply with the bail conditions. A warrant was subsequently issued for his arrest.

Following extensive inquiries since 2014, he was arrested this morning and taken to Raymond Terrace Police Station where he's expected to be charged with the arrest warrant and will most likely appear at court later today.

The man is one of 19 people on Crime Stoppers most wanted list throughout Australia which was compiled in 2016.

In response, the NSW Police Force teamed up with Crime Stoppers Australia for Operation Roam, a nationwide campaign that promotes the exchange of information, regarding wanted people, between policing jurisdictions across the country.

Teens charged over gang rape

BY JESSICA ROUSE

Two teenage boys will face the children's court next week charged over the gang rape of a girl at a Salamander Bay house party in 2015.

On Tuesday 22nd December 2015, the then 16-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by two teens, then aged 15 and 16 years old on the kitchen floor of a house before she passed out.

The incident was reported to Port Stephens police and following extensive investigations, the two boys were arrested yesterday.

They were taken to Raymond Terrace Police Station and both charged with aggravated sexual assault in company.