Updated 7.50pm, adds Templeman's reaction

San Andrea School said on Friday the judicial inquiry it commissioned had rubbished most of the claims made by its former assistant head, whom it said was persisting in making "unsubstantiated and fallacious allegations" that served no purpose other than to tarnish the school’s reputation.

The inquiry  - by Judge David Scicluna - is one of two separate probes in allegations by Trevor Templeman, who accused the school board's former chairman, Kevin Spiteri, of having defrauded the school out of hundreds of thousands of euro. 

Templeman had claimed a member of staff was paid €25,000 to keep quiet about the issue and that the school reassigned him different duties using trumped-up cyberbullying charges. The judicial inquiry concluded that the payout was a severance pay package.

San Andrea also commissioned Big Four audit firm PWC to dig into Templeman's claims of financial mismanagement. 

On Wednesday, the school said Scicluna's inquiry concluded that several claims made by its former assistant head were unsubstantiated. It however singled out school top management for failing to take disciplinary action in numerous situations.

One of the key allegations was that Spiteri had taken €200,000 from school funds and that his company, KJM Enterprises, had made €3 million. The judge leading the inquiry did not look into the alleged financial irregularities.

A statement from the school appeared to confirm that Spiteri's business received €3 million over eight years, covering costs linked to the Multipurpose Hall, employee wages and materials.

San Andrea did not publish the full copy of the inquiry and instead sent out a press release summarising the report findings to the media. Parents were given a redacted version of the two reports due to data protection considerations. 

In a separate statement also on Wednesday, Templeman welcomed the findings of the inquiry. He insisted it confirmed what he had been saying from the outset and that he too was the victim of the school's "culture of bullying".

On Friday the school said its board acted with utmost professionalism and transparency in investigating the allegations, "contrary to claims by Templeman whose sole interest has been to preserve his own reputation at the expense of the facts".

'Templeman acted aggressively, made colleagues feel humiliated'

The school said Templeman's claim that San Andrea chose to leak selective parts of the inquiry was untrue: the school had shared the full report with all school members and parents.

"It should also be noted that Templeman’s claims that he was bullied when he spoke out about financial irregularities were shot down by the independent judge who documented that the school board acted correctly throughout, while the former assistant head attempted to obscure a criminal case against him for cyberbullying by making a series of unfounded allegations," the school said.

"Judge Scicluna stated in the inquiry report: the series of emails written to Templeman requesting him to put down his allegations in writing cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered as persecution or intimidation. It was a (school) Board carrying out its duty. And these repeated requests were made before the cyberbullying case came to a head after a number of parents raised the issue In July 2022. The board could not ignore this issue.”

The school on Friday said testimony from numerous inquiry witnesses pointed to incidents where Templeman himself acted aggressively and made fellow colleagues feel humiliated.

Notwithstanding this, the inquiry concluded that the then-top management failed to take disciplinary action against him, the school added.

'Won't allow unsubstantiated claims continue to the detriment of the school'

Earlier this week Templeman also claimed that according to the probe by PWC, more than €100,000 had been passed on to Kevin Spiteri’s company without any trace or invoices,” the lawyers wrote.

On Friday the school said at no point did the inquiry or PWC report refer to €100,000 passed on to Spiteri’s company without any trace of invoice.

"What the PWC report refers to is that the 'difference between the values is due to an inherent limitation of the data'. This means there is an overlap with a previous or subsequent year that will be looked into in the second phase.

"The school will be delving deeper into all these matters to ensure proper structures are in place and to determine if there is scope for any legal action."

San Andrea thanked Templeman for his past contribution, adding that "without a doubt" this chapter will lead to the adoption of better accountability and good governance practices.

"But we will not allow a situation where unsubstantiated claims continue to be made to the detriment of the school,” the school board said.

Trevor Templeman's reaction

But in a reply, Templeman's lawyers said their client urged the school to publish "the full unsummarised reports" of former Judge David Scicluna and the firm PWC.

"Giving away selective snippets from the report without publishing it in full shows the school is only interested in pushing their own narrative with one aim, to tarnish our client’s reputation, they said adding that failing to do so would confirm the school is hiding."

The lawyers added that the present school board "once again twisted the facts"  when it said that the judge’s report found that the allegations were unsubstantiated. They said the school had specifically excluded from the judge’s remit an inquiry into the financial allegations Templeman had made.

"Unfortunately, this does not augur well for the future of the school, as it seems that the present school board, which includes members from the time Kevin Spiteri was a chairman, are happy and comfortable with the situation that the chairperson of the school was given over €3 million for alleged works without any calls for quotation or tenders and a further €100 thousand without any trace or invoice.

"Given that the school is attacking our client instead of this clear malpractice, our client wouldn’t be surprised if this repeats itself with the current school board," they said.