Prosecutors contend that a teacher who had a sexual contact with a pupil who was a teenager and was sentenced to community service should have been imprisoned instead.
In March, Monique Ooms was exonerated by Victoria’s County Court after she admitted to having sex with a 16-year-old male pupil while she was watching over him.
After pleading guilty to four crimes, she was sentenced to 300 hours of community service; however, the director of public prosecutions has challenged this decision.
Prior to beginning a sexual relationship, Ooms, who is currently 17 weeks pregnant, forged a supportive friendship with the kid and communicated with him by text and Instagram, the court previously heard.
Ooms was stood down after being anonymously informed about the school.
On Friday, Ooms appeared before the Court of Appeal in Melbourne, where prosecutors claimed that she ought to have received a jail sentence.
Elizabeth Ruddle KC told the court, “This is such serious offense, repeated offense, that for the respondent to not be in prison at all really undermines confidence in the system.”
Since her position as a teacher gave her access to the victim, she said that the judge who sentenced Ooms “really underestimated” the nature of the offense.
Since the victim was old enough to have given consent to the relationship, no crime would have been committed if they had met in a different setting, according to Ms. Ruddle.
Jason Gullaci SC, Ooms’ attorney, acknowledged that her punishment was moderate but insisted that his client did not engage in grooming or other predatory behavior.
He claimed that since her situation was made public in the media, she had been subjected to additional punishment due to abuse from others.
Among these was Ooms getting a call from someone posing as a police officer and saying, “I heard you’ve been touching kids at some other high school.”
He begged the appeal judges not to imprison Ooms if they determined that her sentence was too mild because she was pregnant and still had poor mental health.
To convince the judges that she felt she was free at the time of conception and was unaware an appeal would be made, he went over the specifics of her pregnancy, including the date of conception.
Ruddle stated that Ooms might continue to get the same level of medical treatment while incarcerated, including twice-weekly GP and midwife visits.
The verdict will be announced later by Justices Richard Niall, Maree Kennedy, and Cameron Macaulay.
