A Montgomery County teacher is accused of failing to notify authorities after an underage girl told him she was raped.

40-year-old Upper Perkiomen High School health teacher Frank Mercon of Upper Frederick Township is charged with failure to report suspected child abuse, a third degree misdemeanor.

District Attorney Risa Ferman says the girl went to Mercon in 2010 and gave him a note saying she had been the victim of a date rape the previous year on the Penn State Berks County Campus when she was 15.

Court documents say he told her he did not have to report it, and probably nothing could be done because it happened more than a year earlier and there was no physical evidence.  Ferman says the law requires teachers who learn about the sexual abuse of children to report it promptly for the protection of the child.

The case came to light in August of this year after the girl reported it to Berks County authorities.