She was a school leader and a mother of young children, supposedly a respected pillar of the community. She taught at a Marlborough school for more than a decade. He was a 14-year-old schoolboy, and not the only boy she sexually abused. Herald senior crime and justice reporter Anna Leask looks at the school sex-abuse case that rocked Blenheim.
Just after 5pm on Tuesday a gunmetal grey unmarked police car pulled slowly out of the back of the Blenheim District Court.
In the front, two officers.
In the back, a woman sitting alone, looking out the window.
The woman, who cannot legally be named yet, had been at the school for more than a decade before her resignation - which came after her arrest.
During that time she targeted boys in lower socio-economic families; boys who played a particular sport.
Marlborough Boys' College has refused to comment on the case. Photo / Supplied
The first victim named in the charging documents began to engage with the woman when they worked together on a school event in 2017.
His parents were probably proud that he was getting involved in extracurricular activities, exerting himself beyond the classroom.
Little did they know he was effectively being groomed for sex by a person they should have been able to trust.
The woman - often while at home or with her own children - started to send him text messages asking about his sport, offering him rides to various places and telling him about her life.
That messaging ramped up until it was happening every day.
Lewd lunchtimes and trust breached
The pair soon started to spend "most lunchtimes" together and she unloaded on him about her personal problems.
"She would talk to him about her mental health problems and tell him that life was getting too hard for her and she needed someone to talk to," the court document reads.
"The defendant and the victim built up a trust and this led to (her) getting flirty with the victim."
The teacher first enticed the boy to have intercourse with her at the A&P Park on another lunch break. She invited him into the back seat and initiated the sexual activity.
After that, the abuse was routine.
Sometimes she would pick him up and abuse him on a Friday afternoon while she waited for her own young child to finish sport training.
By now the boy believed he was in a "relationship" with his teacher.
"She would tell him that she loved him and how amazing he was," the summary stated.
"There were a number of times when the [teacher] told the victim that she would kill herself.
"This made the victim feel he needed to stay."
This went on for about a year.
'I am ashamed' - the boys speak
In court, the boys were heard from for the first time. They were not there - their shame and embarrassment too much to be in the courtroom with their abuser. They wrote victim impact statements which were read in part by Crown Solicitor Mark O'Donoghue.
The woman was jailed in the Blenheim District Court on Tuesday. Photo / Supplied
"She made me worry about her as when I tried to stop what was happening she told me she would harm herself … this is not fair, she should not have put that burden on me," said the first victim.
The second victim said in his statement: "I am ashamed."
He said when he tried to stop the abuse the woman locked herself in a car and started cutting herself with scissors.
"I did not want to do it anymore," he said.
The boys do not want their abuser to have name suppression.
Their parents want her identified.
They want the community to know who she is and what she has done.
Judge Tony Zohrab rejected an application for permanent name suppression on Tuesday but an immediate appeal by defence lawyer Jonathan Eaton QC means her identity stays secret for at least 20 more working days.
Since the woman's arrest I've heard and read some people apportion blame to the boys.
"He knew what he was doing."
"He didn't have to go with her."
"He could have just gotten out of the car."
"If he didn't like it why didn't he report her."
Statistics show that only about 10 out of 100 sexual abuse crimes are reported and just three of those get to court.
Only one of those is likely to get a conviction.
Males are far less likely to report abuse than girls or women.
And when the perpetrator of the abuse is a teacher and the victim has been groomed, told not to tell, led to believe they are loved and special, the chance they will report it is vastly slimmer.
The first victim in this case believed he was in love, in a real relationship, and was ill-equipped at his age to deal with the burden of his abuser's mental health issues and threats of self harm.
In court on Tuesday it was made clear these boys were not adults, they did not have the capacity to carry the burden of her advances, her unloading of emotional issues, her abuse.
"Bodies of men, minds of children," Judge Zohrab said.
The abuse of the boys went further than just in person, and physically.
The woman used social media to exploit the first boy and expose him to things inappropriate for his age.
"The defendant would take naked photographs of herself whilst she was in the bath or in bed at her address and send them to the victim on Snapchat," the summary stated.
Snapchat is a popular messaging app that lets users exchange pictures and videos called snaps.
The images and videos disappear after they're viewed but can be screen-grabbed.
She would also Facetime the victim and show him her body and tease him.
She seemed to be relentless in pursuing his attention.
In late 2018, the abuse took a new turn when another boy became embroiled in the situation.
He was invited to a group chat by the first victim.
According to the summary of facts, the trio used the chat to discuss "sexual matters".
A day after the chat, the woman picked both boys up and drove them to a local park.
There, in the back of her car, all three engaged in sexual acts.
Eaton said nothing "degrading" happened in that car but Judge Zohrab said any sexual act between a boy and a woman "old enough to be his mother" was demeaning at its very core.
The now jailed woman declined to speak to police about the offending. She also declined to speak to the Herald.
In court we heard much about a letter she had written apologising for her offending. The letter was meant to be for the boys, their families, the school, the community and was read in part in court.
Everyone agrees the situation is horrendous but it depends who you're talking to as to who it's horrendous for.
Some will tell you it's "so sad for the boys", that the offending is "disgusting" and that they cannot believe it has happened. They worry about the damage this woman has done to the boys involved in the prosecution and the others intimated by police in court documents.
Others feel sorry for her and think the boys could and should have done more to stop her.
They seem to ignore the fact she is a convicted sex offender who openly admitted her crimes, that she abused the trust of boys in her care as a teacher, that she is a grown woman who should have known better.
In court, her family were discussed a lot. Her sister was there, but her mother, husband and children were not.
Her husband says mental illness led to the offending. It's the only explanation he can give. Until this, he and others say, she was an exemplary citizen.
He had spoken to his son at length about his part in the situation he was involved in with the teacher that did not result in criminal charges.
"Ultimately, she is a person in a position of power and responsibility and she just totally abused that in every way she could," said the father.
He hoped his boy could "just move on" from the drama - but feared the others were in deeper with their teacher will struggle.
"It's pretty yucky," he said.
When teachers go bad
The Herald asked the Teaching Council how many teachers had been struck off this year for sex offending.
They could not provide the figures immediately so an Official Information Act request was filed and a response is due back on February 4 at the earliest.
To give some insight into the situation, from 2015 until July this year, 23 teachers had their registration cancelled after being convicted of sex offending.
The Teaching Council could not say who the victims were - not all were students or young people.
Up to July 2019, five teachers had been convicted and struck off.
The number of allegations under investigation at the time for teachers relating to sexual misconduct was 82.
For the whole of 2018, the figure for the same allegations was 92.
"The safety and wellbeing of students is a top priority for us, as it is for boards of trustees, parents and whānau," said a Ministry of Education spokeswoman.
"We continue to offer our support to the school and its board if needed."
No comment - local police, school tight-lipped on case
Police in Blenheim declined to speak to the Herald about the case.
One detective who interviewed the woman and put the summary of facts together for the court said she was "not available" and deferred questions to Detective Senior Sergeant Ciaran Sloan.
"Marlborough police will not be making any comment on this," Sloan said in an email.
"Media from police if any will come from the police media hub."
The media team declined to comment or confirm if any further boys had come forward or fresh investigations were under way.
The Herald pushed police on this, saying the organisation was disappointed in their response given the nature of the charges.
"I have now had an opportunity to speak with the appropriate staff regarding this matter," said a spokeswoman.
"I can advise that police won't be making any comments following the sentencing for this matter."
The Herald also sought comment from the principal at the school at the time of the offending.
He did not respond.
The Board of Trustees chair promised to issue a press release after sentencing. He said he was not in Blenheim so could not avail himself for an in-person interview but would consider specific questions.
As of yet no questions have been answered.
Judge Zohrab and O'Donoghue spoke for the victims on Tuesday.
"She's gone out of her way to target them in a sexually exploitative way," O'Donoghue said.
"There was a significant breach of trust, (she) attempted to manipulate, coerce and control the victims with threats of self-harm.
"This was sexually exploitative conduct by an adult ... she emotionally manipulated both boys."
"Effectively there was grooming and premeditation on your part over a long period of time.
"You were a teacher ... this is not a situation of you being a young female teacher ... you were a mature woman, you had a senior leadership role in the community.
"Parents were sending their children to the college to be educated and nurtured ... you have breached that trust.
The judge said the offending was "a gross breach of trust".
He said no one should have been more attuned to the needs of young men growing up than a trained teacher.
"It's difficult enough growing up without these sorts of things occurring," he said, adding he had once been a teenage boy and understood the hardships of maturing.
