RE: Teacher who had sex with student avoids jail

[T-D-C]

Hi Everyone,

This story has hit the news here in Australia and made quite a few people angry. I was just wondering what the people here at Ironworks think of this story.

A woman teacher avoided a jail term yesterday after pleading guilty to a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy. As she left the Victorian County Court, Karen Louise Ellis, a 37-year-old mother of three, said: "I got exactly what I deserved." Ellis had earlier pleaded guilty to six counts of sexual penetration with a boy under 16. Judge John Smallwood sentenced her to 22 months in jail but wholly suspended the term for three years. The former Melbourne physical education teacher had repeated sex with the boy at her North Eltham home while her husband was away in October and November last year.

Further information on the story can be found here.

I think she should have been jailed. A year ago a male teacher was jailed for having sexual relations with a female student. Why is this case any different except for the sexes have been reversed ?

Surly this teacher had a duty of care and that was clearly broken.

What do you all think ?

[Illumina Drathiran'ar]

Chalk it up to sexism in society. Very rarely do females "benefit" from it... It's still wrong.

[shamrock_uk]

I think providing its consensual and both parties fully understand what they're getting into then a jail sentence shouldn't be mandatory. If she got off when a man was jailed for something similar, that stinks, I like consistency in my laws.

There was an article on the BBC website about this very thing actually, they had interviews with teachers and former pupils who'd engaged in relationships like these. Often the teachers are the victims of predatory pupils, as surprising as it may sound, but the same stories were coming out of both the teachers and pupils so it lends it some credence. I think the idea of the 'innocent 16 year-old' in our society these days is a bit out of date as well, and so I wouldn't necessarily absolve the pupil involved of blame.

I'll dig up a link tomorrow, but I'm off to bed. Yes, there was a duty of care broken, but if he was an average 16-year old boy he was probably enjoying the experience. Certainly the article says they were like "husband and wife" - it's only when we get to the courtroom that it suddenly becomes trauma and 'suffered greatly' which makes me wonder if this was very much a parental lawsuit.

Like the article points out, her career is ruined, she's going to have to lead a pretty isolated life for the near future from the angry public and she's on the sex offenders register for life. I think she's been punished enough...

[Cerek]

Chalk it up to the ever-present double standard in most societies regarding sex. Boys receive increased social status for being sexually active and girls are chastised by society for being sexually active.

shamrock even said "the idea of the innocent 16 year old in our society is a bit out of date. And goes on to say the boy probably enjoyed it just as much as the teacher, so he is partly to blame too.

But that very same sentence most likely applies to the girl from the example listed also regarding the male teacher that DID receive jail time. The myth of the "innocent 16 year old" is just as applicable to females as it is to males...and chances are that the 16 year old girl enjoyed the sex just as much as the 16 year old boy. But in her case, she is viewed as the victim of a manipulating older man while the 16 year old boy is considered to be at least partially at fault (and yet is also partially praised) for having sex with an older woman.

It isn't fair or right for this double standard to exist, but it is undeniable that it DOES exist in most societies.

[Aelia Jusa]

I agree with the unfairness of the double standard that is applied to males and females when it comes to sex. There seems to be a perception that males are always in control and responsible (in terms of participation etc, not referring to safe sex precautions) when it comes to sex, I assume because it is more difficult for a man to be 'passive' about sex. However, participating in a sex act is physical, mentally they can be equally as vulnerable as women.

The reason it is illegal and wrong for teachers to have sex with their students is that teachers are in a position of power and the student is therefore at risk of being exploited and manipulated. It is virtually impossible to argue that in a relationship with such an obvious power imbalance that there can be any degree of equality in consent and interactions. It is the same in doctor-patient relationships and so on, however in a teacher-student relationship the relationship is even more dangerous because the student is not at a stage where they are considered capable of making rational, adult decisions for themselves, and so the teacher has even more responsibility to not exploit them.

I think the damage of the double standard is that while girls are viewed rightly as vulnerable and so are protected by society, boys are not seen as vulnerable and so they cannot as easily seek help, or even be acknowledged as needing it. As Cerek said, they are both blamed and seen as having 'gained' something from incidents like this, whereas the total reverse is true. It's also a bad thing that males in the positions of power are in much more difficult positions in terms of being intimate in acceptable ways with their students/clients/etc, because men are seen as predators and women are seen as vulnerable. In a relationship where there is a power imbalance, if the woman is in the position of power, the man and woman are seen as having essentially equal power, but if the man is in the position of power, the man is seen as having disproportionate power to the woman.

[Davros]

Without expressing an opinion on the double standards issue, the judge dealt with his reasoning for treating his sentencing of this case a lot differently from the male teacher.

The male teacher denied the charges, dragged the young victim though a courtroom ordeal, and treated the victim with complete disdain. The court room dramas were drawn out to the nth degree by a series of delays and hostile attacks that were indicative that the defence position was simply to deny the charges and to pressure the girl into backing out and dropping the whole thing. The victim impact statement called for sentence at the maximum for the harm done to the young girl.

The female case is clearly just as criminal, and just as guilty under the law. What was not indicated earlier in the thread was that in this instance the teacher pleaded guilty up front. It was revealed that this was not the 15 yr old boys first sexual relationship (note the word relationship other than encounter), and that he was the active pursuer in the first instance. The boy in his victim impact statement pleaded with the judge for leniancy and said that he basically believed that he had in no way suffered but had instead grown from the experience, and the only lasting negative impact that he would suffer was if the female teacher was sent to jail when he beieved that he at least equally responsible for the affair. The woman has had her life destroyed in ways that the male teacher never had because for 12 months she has been dismissed and become a social pariah. The male teacher had for that pre-trial period been stood down of full pay till the charges were heard, and had the benefit of supporters who believed his story and had stood by him. The woman had served a year of abuse and shame before coming to trial.

Now in both cases the responsibility rests solely with the adult in the position of trust. They are both guilty of the same crime, and the courts found them both guilty. Now that you have more of the background, would someone now like to say that they should have received the same sentence?

My view is no - the courts give judges discretion for just these sorts of reasons. Personally I would have liked to see her get a small custodial sentence - say 3 months (this crime should have some time), but there is no way that she caused the same harm as did the male teacher.

[ 11-11-2004, 05:07 PM: Message edited by: Davros ]

[Timber Loftis]

Where were these teachers when I was growing up?

[Link]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Where were these teachers when I was growing up?

Probably hiding from you Timber.

On a second note though, they never said any of those teachers were actually good looking..

[ 11-11-2004, 10:37 AM: Message edited by: Link ]