Due to the fact that the student, who was 16 at the time, was not “harmed,” the judge decided not to arrest the teacher who had sex with him.
At the Australian town of Maffra in Victoria, Monique Ooms, 31, preyed on the adolescent while he was in a “emotionally vulnerable situation” grieving a buddy.
The youngster was “not damaged,” according to Judge John Smallwood, despite the fact that they had sex at least four times last year in her car and at her home.
He said: ‘Often in these situations the harm is what comes from other people after it becomes public.
‘He being very close to 17 … does that go to in any way, shape or form the objective seriousness of the offending?’
The pair’s relationship started when Ooms messaged the boy on social media after noticing he was more withdrawn.
They started texting and before long Ooms was sending the teenager photos of herself in her underwear.
They kissed for the first time last July and Victoria’s Latrobe Valley County Court heard how they later discussed that it was wrong.
The next time they met they had sex in the back of Ooms’ car. They had sex here at least four times before they started arranging meet-ups at her house.
Someone sent two letters to the school principle, exposing the relationship and he alerted the police.
When the 16-year-old was questioned by officers, he insisted he was just friends with his teacher and then warned Ooms to delete their messages.
The court heard how the pair had told each other they ‘loved and missed’ one another several times.
At first, Ooms denied the relationship but she ended up getting tricked into admitting it over text to a friend. When asked: ‘You did actually do it, didn’t ya?’ she responded ‘Yeah’.
Ooms later pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual penetration of a child under her supervision and care.
Judge Smallwood stressed the offence was not Ooms having sex with the boy, but that she had sex with a teenager she was in charge of.
Crown Prosecutor Andrew Moore said: ‘There’s no definitive evidence of harm, but it is of course a notorious fact that in these sorts of cases – sexual offending against minors – harm doesn’t surface sometimes until a little bit later and sometimes decades later.’
The court heard Ooms had suffered ‘public shame’, lost her job and had been involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric ward over suicide attempts and ideation.
She is now working as a bricklayer and has posted about her life on social media.