Two kisses with a female high school student were not sexual but "cultural" during a time of grieving, a veteran school teacher has said during a bid to avoid jail.

Vasilious Kafataris, 57, had been working as a teacher for 25 years when he twice indecently touched a 17-year-old in 2021.

The Bankstown man formed a bond with the girl, kissing her once on the lips at a western Sydney train station and again outside his apartment after someone he knew died from suicide.

"There was nothing like a romantic connection," he said during a sentence hearing at Parramatta District Court on Friday.

Under questioning by crown prosecutor Georgina Namat, he said kissing his student hello and goodbye was "cultural" and he did not know it was illegal.

"There was nothing in my mind sexual about it in a

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