Sarah Jayne Vercoe, 25, received a jail sentence of a mere two years on:
...14 charges arising from a two-month sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student she had met at a peer support camp.
The boy ended their relationship in January and Vercoe then went on to abuse four other boys – aged 14, 15 and two aged 16 – in one night in April.
She took the boys to her home while her husband was away.
Vercoe had agreed to give the boys a lift home after a basketball game, but instead she bought them alcohol before engaging in sex, or various sex acts, with them.
Tasmanian Supreme Court Justice Shan Tennent made the observation:
"It is hard to understand how a person such as you who is, on the surface clever, bright and attractive, could have exercised so little even common sense and act as you did."
and went on to make the same note every judge, magistrate, defense lawyer and journalist makes in all cases of female paedophiles preying on boys:
The boys involved were "not wholly unwilling"
Fortunately, family and others saw the situation for what it is:
Outside the court, the boys' families and sex abuse campaigners criticised the sentence, saying it was too lenient.
A spokesman for the families of the boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, also said the boys had become withdrawn and were undergoing counselling.
"It is unbelievable that she will be out in two years. Does that send the right message to someone who is in a position of trust?" the spokesman said.
"The perception out in the big world is that they are boys and they should be grinning, but that's far from the truth."
One of the boys' mothers added tearfully: "I also thought it was very sexist mentioning that she was pretty and intelligent woman... if that was a male perpetrator would she say the same thing?"
No they wouldn't. But perhaps Justice Tennent thinks it'll all have a happy ending, just like rapist Mary Kay Letourneau and her victim Vili Fualaau.
-- Nick
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