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Neighbourhood > Guest Character Profiles > Mr White Douglas Bennett

When Charlene Mitchell was finding it difficult to keep up with her schoolwork, her mother, Madge visited Erinsborough High School teacher Mr White, but didn’t get quite the response she hoped for when he admitted that it might be better to allow the girl to leave school and train as a mechanic if she was really so unhappy. A few months later, Mr White was forced to intervene when Charlene, along with her friends, Jane Harris, Scott Robinson and Mike Young, were involved in an assault on school bitch Sue Parker. Although Jane had unexpectedly been the one to punch Sue, her three friends covered for her and they all refused to admit to the incident. When Mr White then told principal Kenneth Muir that the act of violence was very out of character for all four of the students, he decided to give them each a month’s worth of detentions, during which they would clean up the schoolyard. Sue, however, wasn’t satisfied and talked her father into suing the families of Mike, Scott, Jane and Charlene, adamant that they had all ganged up and bashed her. Jane finally realised that she had to come clean, and Sue was exposed as a liar, causing her father to drop the matter.

Later that year, as Mike, Jane, Charlene and Scott, along with Scott’s cousin, Nikki Dennison, prepared to take their exams, Scott was growing increasingly desperate. Having struggled to revise for a maths exam, he admitted to Nikki that he had written all of the formulas on his arms and would have to resort to cheating. Honest Nikki was appalled and tried to talk him out of it, a conversation which was overheard by Sue, who went straight to Mr White. After Nikki had told Mike, Jane and Charlene about Scott’s plan, Mike tried to talk his mate out of doing it, but they were stopped by Mr White, who explained that he had heard something from another student and needed Scott to roll up his sleeves. Fortunately, Scott had already had second thoughts about his plan and washed the writing off his arms, and, once again, Sue was left looking like a liar and hauled into the principal’s office. Scott, meanwhile, couldn’t work out who had dobbed on him, eventually realising that it must have been Charlene, as they’d recently split up and weren’t getting on. But, as he was busy accusing her and taking out his anger, Mike arrived and explained that he had waited outside the principal’s office after the exam and spotted Sue emerging, looking like she was feeling very sorry for herself.

Trivia Notes
• Doug Bennett returned as Mr Ross in 1988, as Bill Adams in 1992 and as Sergeant Terry Walsh in 1999

Biography by Steve

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