Charges against a Mandurah teacher accused of child sex offences have been dropped in Perth Magistrates Court.
The woman, who cannot be named, faced court on Wednesday.
She had been charged with six counts of sexual penetration of a child over 16 under her authority and four counts of indecently dealing with a child over 16 under her authority.
It is understood the teacher resigned from a private school in Mandurah after allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a student.
In a letter sent to parents on January 28, the school's principal advised of an "alleged issue relating to child safety".
On Wednesday all charges were dropped, with the prosecution saying it was not in the public interest to pursue them.
This is absolutely disgusting. And once again, it highlights the huge discrepancies in how the justice system deals with sexual assault and rape in the West.
I cannot believe it isn't "in the public interest" to charge someone who took advantage of a minor in her care. Now whilst the age of consent in Western Australia is 16, it's also a statutory offence for someone in a position of authority to have sex with someone under the age of 18. And because the woman was a teacher, she had a position of authority over the student. Which, legally, means the minor could not give valid consent to the teacher for the sexual intercourse. Hence, it is rape.
So outside of the obvious answer, why is it not in the public interest to prosecute someone who has committed rape against a minor? If it was a male that had done this with a female student, the teacher would have been publicly shamed and had his face and name planted across every single bit of media in Western Australia, if not, across Australia itself, not to mention the sentence served would have been the maximum possible under the law. So why is it acceptable that a female teacher is afforded the privacy protections that a male perpetrator would not have? Why is it acceptable that the charges are dropped? This means she can't even be registered as a sex offender and therefore could take up another job and another school and take advantage of other minors.
So what do we think, NSG? Was the judge right to drop the charges? Do you agree there is a double standard in Western justice systems when dealing with rape and sexual assault?
