A Brisbane court has reserved its decision in the appeal of bus driver Lindsay Francis Selby, who is challenging his conviction for careless driving causing the death of 18-year-old Tia Cameron in the city’s central business district in March 2024. Defence counsel Saul Holt KC argued before the District Court that Selby, 72, had only seconds to react to banked-up traffic and believed he was applying the brakes, which were never activated. Prosecutor Susan Hedge contended that Selby’s relaxed demeanour on internal CCTV and his failure to brake earlier showed he was not paying due care and attention. Judge Bernard Porter KC described the case as a “tragedy” in which many drivers might make similar misjudgments without such consequences. The victim’s family, present in court, interjected emotionally, with her father calling out to ask why the bus’s air horn was not used.

In separate proceedings, Australian and Ghanaian courts have imposed custodial sentences on educators who abused students. In Victoria, teacher Justin Marks was jailed for seven years and one month after pleading guilty to 12 charges including sexual assault and sexual penetration of a child. The County Court heard that a bus driver confronted Marks after witnessing inappropriate touching of a teenage student on a school trip, triggering a police investigation that uncovered over 14,000 messages between the pair. Marks, who showed remorse, will be a registered sex offender for life. In Ghana, the Odumase-Krobo Circuit Court sentenced a 32-year-old teacher, Hondana Mensah, to 12 years’ imprisonment for defiling a 12-year-old pupil he had been privately tutoring. The court described the sentence as a deterrent against sexual offences involving children. A third case, in Victoria, involves a 54-year-old former teacher, Nicole Ann Jones, who is standing trial for allegedly grooming and sexually abusing a 12-year-old student in 1999; she denies the charges.

Viewed from Buenos Aires, the focus shifts to violence directed at teachers themselves. Argentine educators and unions report that physical and verbal attacks in schools have become a daily reality, not isolated incidents. In recent weeks, a mother assaulted a teacher in front of a fifth-grade class in Moreno, a group of mothers attacked a primary school teacher in Marcos Paz, and a student fractured a music teacher’s jaw in Tandil. César Rodríguez, subsecretary general of the UDOCBA union, says many teachers now suffer panic attacks, require psychological care, and fear returning to classrooms. A teacher with 14 years’ experience, speaking anonymously, described how institutional resources are increasingly diverted from pedagogy to managing violence, while a loss of symbolic authority and the amplification of conflicts on social media compound the problem. Many episodes go unreported due to fear of reprisals.

Meanwhile, historical abuse allegations continue to surface. Police in the Australian Capital Territory are investigating multiple reports of sexual assaults at a Belconnen doughnut shop in the mid-1980s, appealing for information from former employees. In the Northern Territory, a 40-year-old former holiday care worker has been charged with indecent touching and sexual grooming of a child under 16; a leaked email revealed he had also worked in a public school. A judge denied bail, citing a “relatively strong” Crown case based on a child forensic interview, with the next hearing set for August. The Brisbane bus driver’s verdict remains pending, while the Victorian historical teacher trial continues. In Argentina, unions are demanding greater protection measures, though no legislative timetable has been set.