Can we stop calling Sophie his ‘girlfriend’?

As Clayton Weatherston appears before the Parole Board for the brutal murder of Sophie Elliott, we hear again that she was his ‘girlfriend.’ The term makes their relationship sound ordinary and fun, romantic even - as if she had met the boy next door.  

During Weatherston’s trial, and over the eighteen years since, media coverage has framed Sophie almost exclusively as Weatherston’s girlfriend, sidelining the fact that Weatherston was also her lecturer and tutor at the University of Otago, an older man with academic authority and influence over her. That power imbalance matters. Lecturer–student relationships are completely different to everyday boyfriend-girlfriend unions; they unfold within a power hierarchy that shapes everything. These are relationships that involve exploitation and within which consent cannot be given freely. She was his student and his victim.

Otago University employed Weatherston, placing him in a role with institutional power over Sophie. A narcissistic Weatherston misused this power to engage in a manipulative, controlling relationship that ultimately led to Sophie’s death. Ironically, this tragedy occurred within a university setting, an institution dedicated to learning, and yet the lessons about power, consent, and boundaries appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

Understanding why lecturer–student intimate relationships are inherently wrong requires recognising how power distorts consent, regardless of age. Firstly, a lecturer is in a position of authority over their students, and their professional role gives them easy access to them that they wouldn’t normally have. The student has usually been conditioned their entire life to trust their teacher: to believe that they will always have their best interests at heart. The student assumes that their academic mentor holds superior knowledge and that adhering to their guidance will lead to good outcomes. As psychologist Stanley Milgram demonstrated decades ago, people routinely comply with authority figures even when doing so conflicts with their instincts or morals. 

Furthermore, a student needs their lecturer to help them with their learning, and this dependency can make a student reluctant to offend them or to express any disagreement, and it can make it very challenging to break ties with them.

The student is also likely to be subconsciously affected by common distortions in the way they perceive their lecturer. There is a natural tendency for people to idealise their lecturer.  This is because the student is only presented with a very limited view of this person, as seen in their professional role: the intelligent man presenting information, and the helpful lecturer assisting in tutorials. The professional is being paid to care for their students, and so, to the student, it can initially feel like a relationship that is only ever positive and nurturing. It’s not surprising, therefore, that students can develop feelings of adoration for a professional whose care and authority they are under. These feelings can easily be misinterpreted by a professional, particularly one who is narcissistic or untrained in power dynamics, as being a reflection of their inherent attractiveness as a person, rather than a consequence of the position they hold.

A lack of training, rules and consequences

University lecturers in New Zealand wield significant power over students and receive remarkably little training in how to use it safely. Lecturers are appointed for their academic expertise, and there is no compulsory education around professional boundaries or the ethics of authority. They are not registered or accountable to an external professional body in the way school teachers are.

Colleagues at the time when Sophie was at university recognised the risk of harm in the student-lecturer relationship. In trial testimony, a former Otago University professor said he thought Weatherston’s relationship with Sophie was “a bad idea” but that Weatherston had not thought through the consequences of becoming involved with a student he taught and assessed. The warning signs were there. They were noticed. And they were not acted on.

University students such as Luzie Schmid have also courageously spoken out about the harm that comes from being groomed into a relationship with a lecturer and how the power imbalance negates consent. A large body of international research backs this up.

Gil Elliott, Sophie’s father, demanded in 2022 that the University of Otago ban all student–tutor relationships, highlighting that the system allowed the relationship that ended his daughter’s life to proceed unchecked.

None of these shortcomings shifts responsibility away from Clayton Weatherston, who alone is responsible for his crimes. But institutions shape the environments in which these relationships form. When policies are vague, training is optional or non-existent, and consequences are unclear, abuse of power is not just possible, it is enabled. 

Despite everything that is known, little has changed. Otago’s Ethical Behaviour Policy currently states that the university “strongly discourages” intimate relationships between staff and students and “encourages” staff who enter into relationships with students “to seek advice.” There is no clear prohibition. No mandatory disclosure. No transparent statement of consequences.

By contrast, in New Zealand, doctors, psychologists, clergy, and secondary school teachers who have sexual relationships with people under their authority face disciplinary tribunals, public findings, and the near-certain loss of their careers. University lecturers do not.

It would seem the university is reluctant to take heed of the research and set a hard line that puts student safety first. It is concerning that New Zealand cannot even provide clear professional misconduct rules when other countries have gone as far as to make it a criminal offence. It is abhorrent that in this country, it is not even a criminal sexual offence for a secondary teacher to have sex with one of their students once they are sixteen if they appear to have ‘consented.’ In contrast, in several Australian jurisdictions, laws now recognise that a teacher’s authority over a student can nullify consent - meaning that in these cases the power relationship, not just age, determines criminal liability. In many U.S. states, criminal statutes similarly make sexual activity between educators and students they supervise illegal, even if the student is above the age of consent, because the power relationship itself vitiates consent.

Parole hearings are necessary, but they traumatise the families of victims and force society to revisit painful histories: Sophie’s murder was so horrendous that it remains etched in our collective memories. This one should also prompt harder questions about why more isn’t being done to safeguard students and to train educators about how to use power safely.  Remembering Sophie Elliott should mean more than retelling her death. It should mean confronting institutions that speak of learning yet fail to learn when it matters most.