The jury has retired in the ACT Supreme Court trial of a former student teacher accused of grooming and sexual offences against a 15-year-old she met during a teaching placement.
The 28-year-old teacher is defending the charges saying she believed the boy was 16 at the time, while the prosecution has urged the jury to find the woman should reasonably have known he was 15.A sad attempt to keep a popular, athletic young man in her orbit? Or a relationship cultivated to make it more likely the teenager would engage in sexual activities?
She was arrested after an investigation sparked by a complaint to the boy's school, where she had briefly been a student teacher. Images were also produced to the court, including one of the pair in a change-room in a shop, where the woman was wearing a G-string.Witnesses also told the court they saw other videos and images of the woman in suggestive poses and wearing lingerie.The woman's case is that she honestly believed the boy was 16.
But Mr Pararajahsingham told the jury the teenager deliberately used her for his own purposes, including sharing the images to impress his friends and upset his former girlfriend."The giving of gifts … was simply to keep this athletic young man in her orbit." Mr Pararajahsingham said.'Surreptitiously her way into his life'
The crown case is that the woman groomed the boy by giving him gifts, money and lifts to school and elsewhere.Ms Beljic posed the question as to whether she was doing it to be friends as she claimed or if she was aiming at a relationship that would turn sexual."There's no doubt lied, but he told you he lied. He said things to big note himself," Ms Beljic said.
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