An Auckland primary school teacher appears in North Shore District Court for sentencing in October 2025 after admitting to grooming an 11-year-old student. Photo / Dean Purcell
An Auckland primary school teacher who groomed an 11-year-old student - repeatedly sending nude photos before spending the night with him - has been sentenced to home detention.
The 35-year-old will not have to register as a sex offender but did lose her bid for permanent name suppression as she appeared in the dock today in North Shore District Court.
However, she cannot yet be identified while contemplating an appeal.
“Your offending has had wide and devastating impacts,” Judge Paul Murray said as he announced his decisions regarding sentence, sex offender registry and suppression.
It has affected the defendant’s estranged husband, her wider family and colleagues at her former school, which cannot be identified to protect the boy’s identity, the judge said. But the damage to the 11-year-old and his family would have been most obvious, he added.
“He was at a vulnerable and formative age and stage,” Judge Murray explained. “Your offending would have been deeply confusing for him.”
The woman had earlier pleaded guilty to grooming for sexual conduct with a young person, which is punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment, and indecency with a boy under 12, which carries a 10-year maximum sentence.
The boy was not the defendant’s pupil but frequently interacted with her class.
Court documents state they messaged each other via social media and Google Docs, used by teachers for grading, for an indeterminate period prior to the boy “asking her out” in August last year.
Before that, the teacher had repeatedly encouraged the child to do so.
“We would make a good couple,” she wrote at one point, according to the summary of facts she agreed to.
“If you ask me out, I’ll say ‘yes’,” she said at another point.
After the boy did so, the woman repeatedly told him she loved him.
The defendant attempted to cover her tracks by communicating through Snapchat, which auto-erases messages, and by erasing their real-time conversations on Google Docs.
Court documents outlined in detail a 24-day period in August and September 2024 that followed the shift to what the defendant called “dating”.
The two met unsupervised on multiple occasions, including walks at an Auckland park in which she held the boy’s hand.
During one scheduled walk, the two decided to instead go to a home belonging to the defendant’s parents, who were on an overseas trip.
The two wrestled, at which point the teacher grabbed the boy and kissed him.
She also during that period sent multiple explicit photos of herself partially or fully undressed, telling him: “Don’t tell anyone, this is just for you”.
On September 6 last year, she slept in the same bed as the boy while staying at his father’s house, she acknowledged in the agreed facts.
Defence lawyer David Jones KC argued today that his client had been suffering a psychological issue in which she saw herself, as if in virtual reality, as a fellow 11-year-old.
It stemmed from trauma in her own childhood, he said, describing the situation as “trauma-bonding”.
“We’re not talking about some sort of predatory behaviour or prurient interest,” Jones argued.
“She had a real interest in helping young people with behavioural issues. And she was of the same ilk. She would regress back to the age where she was 11.”
He pointed repeatedly to the case of fellow teacher Myah Adams, who was sentenced out of Auckland District Court earlier this year to a short term of imprisonment before the High Court decided on appeal that she should instead serve home detention.
In that case, Jones said, the offending was much more serious because it involved sex acts on the 15-year-old victim, while the most physical contact that is proven in the current case, he said, is that his client and the boy inappropriately held hands.
Crown solicitor Alysha McClintock noted that an important distinction between the two cases is the ages of the two victims. In the current case, she noted, the victim was much younger and the defendant older.
“This offending has caused a large amount of anger and hurt,” she said, describing the conduct as “on a path to doing something more sexual”.
However, she acknowledged that home detention was an option for the judge based on prior cases, including Adams.
Before making his decision, Judge Murray heard from both of the victim’s parents, whose impact statements were read aloud by a victim advocate.
He also summarised an impact statement from the defendant’s estranged husband, who said he has lost all trust and continues to feel confused and bewildered.
Both of the victim’s parents said they wanted the teacher’s name suppression to be lifted.
“My son’s innocence and trust have been irreparably damaged,” the boy’s mother wrote, describing the “unimaginable betrayal” of a teacher who was inflicting trauma while pretending to help the boy.
“Justice in this case must ... send a clear message that such actions are intolerable.”
The boy’s father described the weekly hour-and-a-half round trip he takes each week to take his son to ongoing counselling sessions.
He recalled seeing changes in his son’s behaviour prior to the defendant’s “self-absorbed, manipulating, cold-hearted actions” being exposed.
She had tried to convince the parents to blame the school and suggested she help home school the boy - all so she could get better access to him, he alleged.
“She doesn’t have any remorse for the stomach-churning abuse she subjected our son to,” he wrote. “I believe [she] should be banned from going anywhere near any school in this country.”
Judge Murray acknowledged the suffering the defendant caused the victim and his family but agreed with the defence that she didn’t need to register as a sex offender based on psychological reports that found her to be a low risk of reoffending.
He settled on an end sentence of six months’ home detention, followed by six months of post-detention conditions. It reflected credits for her guilty pleas, rehabilitation efforts, lack of prior convictions and remorse.
But permanent name suppression was a step too far, the judge said.
“Many in the community are already aware of your offending,” he said, noting that she had reported harassment in the community and having been outed on social media despite suppression orders.
The impact on her own family, while unfortunate, is a normal consequence of criminal offending, he noted, adding that the starting point for such decisions must be the need for open justice.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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