JUDGE CRITICISED FOR VERDICT
BY GABRIEL PRINCEWILL
A controversial case in which a former teacher was handed a suspended sentence by a judge has been criticised.
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Judge Jemma Greensbury QC’s judgement has been described as being reflective of the judicial’s system’s ignorance about sexual violence.
The court, which heard evidence detailing the fragility of the accused’s private relationship allied to the seductive antics of the young female student whose persistence eventually landed him in hot water. Testimony from the victim’s friends that she was stalking him weighed heavily in the judge’s mind, leading her to make the victim partly culpable for breach of duty. The judge said ” the victim had become obsessed with Kerner. She told him her friends described her accurately in my view as stalking you. There is no evidence you encouraged her”.
This statement is partly true and partly flawed. If the student stalked the teacher, then it is a fact. That can’t be changed and she therefore contributed to the moral breach of conduct that eventuated. The judge is wrong in saying the teacher did not encourage it. Clearly, his comments that their relationship was written in the stars amounts to encouragement, he was effectively responding to her seductions and legitimizing her chase.
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