Sydney teacher ‘relationship’ with student was ‘rewarding’

A former teacher at a prestigious Sydney school has denied targeting a teenage student before they began having sex, telling a court she thought they were involved in a ‘very mutual love affair’.

But the 34-year-old woman says she now recognises she was committing sex offences against the boy over three months in 2016 when she worked at Sydney Grammar School.

‘I understand that now but at the time it seemed to be very mutual indeed, that’s what made it rewarding,’ she said in the NSW District Court.

A former teacher at a prestigious Sydney school has denied targeting a teenage student before they began having sex, telling a court she thought they were involved in a ‘very mutual love affair’

The woman met the 17-year-old victim several times in early 2016 at her home, a classroom and a school storage cupboard, according to an agreed statement of facts.

She faced a sentence hearing for the second time on Wednesday following her guilty plea to five counts of sexual intercourse with a person under care.

Under cross-examination by crown prosecutor Lara Gallagher, the former teacher said she knew she was breaking a rule when she first invited the victim to her home and gave him three beers.

‘At that point, it seemed if I was breaking the rule of having him in my house then giving him a beer wasn’t much of a stretch,’ she said.

The woman met the 17-year-old victim several times in early 2016 at her home, a classroom and a school storage cupboard, according to an agreed statement of facts

The woman met the 17-year-old victim several times in early 2016 at her home, a classroom and a school storage cupboard, according to an agreed statement of facts

But she denied suggestions by the prosecutor that she was targeting the boy and trying to disinhibit him with alcohol so she could commit sex offences against him.

The woman began kissing the teenager during his visit and was dismissive when he said ‘I can’t’, according to the agreed facts.

‘My recollection of that is he said to me “we can’t do this, you’re married”,’ the former teacher said on Wednesday.

After the boy’s first visit to her flat, they kept meeting until April 2016 when he told her he’d been harmed and he wanted to sever contact.

The woman said that until that point there was no sign of anything other than enthusiasm and affection, which ‘allowed me to see it as something that it wasn’t’.

However, she said she wasn’t trying to assert she did the right thing, and she was ‘deeply sorry’.

Her sentence hearing will resume on January 29.  

Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.



Read more at DailyMail.co.uk