A former Vancouver high school teacher faced with 16 sex-related offences testified on Tuesday that most of the allegations against him are true.

Tom Ellison, 62, took the stand on his own behalf in a B.C. provincial courtroom, facing charges that involve 12 former female students.

Former teacher Tom Ellison testified on Tuesday that most of the allegations against him are true.
(CBC)

The charges, which include gross indecency and indecent assault, stem from alleged incidents between 1972 and 1982 when Ellison taught at Prince of Wales Secondary School in Vancouver. Ellison taught an elite outdoor program known as Quest.

Ellison admitted that he had sex with some of his students during that time, saying the students consented to the sexual activity, but he categorically denied the evidence from two women who have testified at his trial.

He said he never touched one of those students. Ellison also disputed another former student's story of being pinned to the ground by Quest teachers while Ellison ripped her underwear off from under her skirt.

Incident 'not a big deal'

"I did have her underwear in my hand," he testified. "There's no doubt about that. They were just tiny, little, you know, tiny, little bits of underwear. They were tiny and she was a big girl and then she fell down. I remember going, 'Oh, this is different.' I didn't expect to have her underwear in my hand."

Asked if he pulled the underwear off, Ellison stated: "Never, never, never would we have ever done that. Never."

Sitting stiffly in the witness chair, shifting often as he spoke, Ellison offered a different version, referring to the incident as a "gonch pull," an activity he admitted he initiated from time to time.

But on that day, he said, he was getting "back" at the student for trying to pull his underwear.

"It was not in my mind a big deal," he testified. "It was not normal, but it wasn't a big deal."

Ellison said he grabbed the student's underwear from the back, then she fell down and it came off in his hands.

'Cult' atmosphere questioned

Ellison also challenged suggestions made during the trial that there was a cult-like atmosphere in the program, in which protective students acted as lookouts when other school teachers approached the Quest room.

"The word cult to me means tearing people down," Ellison testified. "And we did everything to build people up."

Ellison is expected to continue his testimony on Wednesday.

In the last two weeks during the trial, Ellison mostly stared at the floor as he listened to a dozen former students testify about his sexual advances.

Students, as young as 14 when Ellison was their teacher, described being handpicked for a coveted spot in Quest — a semester-long program of canoeing, camping and summer sailing trips on Ellison's boat. According to testimony, the trips included nude swimming, massages and sex with their teacher.

Before Ellison began his testimony, his lawyer, Bill Smart, told the judge his position is that students were not children — they were young adults who made a choice.

With files from the Canadian Press