“My name is Neil Bantleman and I am innocent”

A Burlington teacher accused of sexually abusing a kindergarten student at an international school in Indonesia has pleaded with a Jakarta court for the case against him to be thrown out.

Neil Bantleman was in court today. He filed a personal exception letter. In it he wrote: “My name is Neil Bantleman and I am an innocent, upstanding member of society. I have never committed any offence against any student or any individual throughout my entire teaching career.”

The prosecution will respond to the application on Thursday, while the court is expected to make a decision on the exceptions next Tuesday, and whether this case will proceed to trial.

A teaching assistant and 5 janitors are also accused of sexually abusing students at the school. The men have been in custody since July.

CHCH News spoke to Bantleman’s wife Tracy this morning. Here’s a transcript:

Annette Hamm, CHCH News: Tracy, first of all, good morning. Can you tell us, I understand court is over for the day in Jakarta. What was the latest information that came out today?
Tracy Bantleman: Well, today is the day that Neil was should to read his personal exception to the judges, so he wrote that and prepared it and read to it to the judge. Our legal team — so our defence team also read their letter of exception, which was about a 12-page document that outlined all the procedural issues and issues regarding lack of evidence to the judges, and then, basically, on Thursday, the prosecution will then respond to those exceptions and then following next week, we should get some kind of — some kind of decision on whether or not the case will actually fully go to trial.

CHCH: Now, I understand that part of — you said the legal team filed its own package of exceptions, among that, they said, you know, this case should be thrown out because they say the prosecution can’t specify a date, a time or location for these alleged assaults.
TB: That’s true. The very first paragraph of the indictment reads, at a time which could not be remembered precisely, perhaps between January 2013 and March 2014 or some time in 2013 or 2014 in a location somewhere in the school in Jakarta. I mean, when you have that kind of, um, indictment written by a prosecutor, you have to — you have to call it, because how is somebody supposed to defend themselves — I mean we already know these crimes never happened, but, you know, how possibly can someone even come up with any evidence of being in an alternate location on any one of the days or how any of the medical reports or anything that comes forward, relevant when you don’t have a time to base it off?

CHCH: Were — did any of the other people respond?
TB: Yes, Ferdi also got to write his letter of exception and respond to the judges. So they both were able to be present in the courtroom, but not together. So each person had their session in court separate of each other.

CHCH: Ok. Any idea of when the prosecution is going to respond to the pleas, to Neil’s particularly?
TB: The prosecution?
CHCH: Or, sorry, the court itself, when will it respond?
TB: That will be basically on Tuesday. So the process in Indonesia is, you know, once the individual, has pleaded they exception, once the defence has submitted their exception, once the prosecutor responds, then the court will decide. So, basically, next Tuesday, we will have some kind of decision on whether or not the case will move forward in trial. These exceptions, are rarely granted in Indonesia. It is a mechanism that’s in place, but we believe, because we have valid reasons not only the issue of time and place but lack of evidence completely should have this case thrown out. I think, you know, if — if the judges can look at this fairly, if they can look at the case and see there’s issues with procedural law and the fact there’s no time and date listed, that that breaks Indonesian law, then they could very well end up setting a precedence for other cases in Indonesia from looking at some of the cases that happened before.
CHCH: OK. Tracy, thank you very much for talking to with us on the phone this morning and, of course, we will continue to follow up on this case. That’s Tracy Bantleman, whose husband, Neil, went before a court in Jakarta today to plead his case he had nothing to do with the alleged sexual assault.