As I wrote recently, by far the biggest risk for sexual abuse of children, outside the home, is not priests, nor strangers in trenchcoats, but teachers. Increasingly, female, and in their 30s.
Half the teachers currently suspended by Victoria’s teaching watchdog are facing allegations of online ‘grooming behaviour’, up from only one in eight such suspensions two-and-a-half years ago. US researcher Charol Shakeshaft estimates that teacher abuse is “likely 100 times worse” than by priests. In just 15 years, the number of women in the criminal justice system for sexual offences has increased by a staggering 208 per cent. Many of the cases involve female teachers.
Case in point:
A former primary school teacher who sent an 11-year-old student nude photographs of herself has been sentenced to home detention.
The woman, who has interim name suppression, was in her 30s when she taught at a primary school in the Auckland region where she met the boy and told him they would “make a good couple”.
She also spent the night with him.
The court doesn’t state she had sex with the boy, but if she spent the night in his bed, it hardly seems a reach to suspect that she wasn’t reading him a story. She did admit to “doing an indecent act”.
The boy’s mother told the court that her son had been “burdened with confusion, shame and fear” by the woman’s offending.
“My son’s innocence and trust has been irreparably damaged.”
The boy’s father, whose statement was also read, said the woman had tried to convince him and the boy’s mother to blame the school for their son’s behavioural issues […]
“She believes she’s the centre of the universe, reserved just for her.”
So, performing indecent acts on and sexually grooming a child. What do we imagine would happen to a male teacher caught in such crimes?
Certainly not this feather-light pat on the wrist.
[Judge Paul Murray] imposed a sentence of six months home detention […]
He also declined to add her name to the Child Sex Offender’s register, due to her assessment of being at low risk of re-offending.
Why didn’t he give her a medal while he was at it?
The woman’s name remains a court-ordered secret for the present.
A male teacher would, and deservedly so, be in jail and shamed for all to read.
