Mom yells in court at ‘full-on sex predator’
Weekend jail time sought for former educator guilty of sexual exploitation
The boy’s mother sat at the back of Courtroom No. 11 in tearful silence Monday as her son’s sex predator was portrayed as a compassionate, morally upright woman who should serve her jail sentence on weekends.
She kept listening as a defence lawyer presented Katherine (Kathy) Kitts, her son’s onetime teacher’s aide, as a devoted mother who had made a “very big mistake.”
Kitts’s lawyer, Susan Chapman, also told the sentencing hearing that the 46-year-old had suffered hardship in light of her criminal case, saying she’s on strict bail conditions, her teaching career is finished, she has been publicly shamed for her sex crime and will forever wear an online “scarlet letter.”
The Crown wasn’t buying that it was a one-off mistake, and noted that the sexual exploitation of the vulnerable boy lasted two years.
That’s when the boy’s mother stopped listening and stormed out of court, yelling that Kitts was a “full-on sex predator.”
Outside court, after regaining her composure, the boy’s mother told the Citizen: “It has been traumatizing for my son and I, waiting for almost two years for her to be sentenced, but mostly the duration and intensity of her sexual obsession with my son. We want to put this past us. What she did to us cannot be undone.”
Her son had always struggled in class, so when he met Kitts, he was grateful. She would, he felt, guide him through to graduation day. She helped him with his homework and he trusted her.
But a year later, things took a rapid turn, the boy said, and he felt like he had to have sex with her for fear she’d fail him.
“I had no choice but to agree. If I said no, she wouldn’t help me with homework and I would fail,” he wrote in a victim-impact statement filed at the Ottawa court.
The boy said he had never felt so alone, and that he stopped seeing friends for fear they’d learn his awful, dirty secret. Kitts had told the boy to keep it secret and that if he told anyone her life would be ruined and she could end up in jail, according to the agreed statement of facts entered after the teacher’s aide pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation.
“She would stalk me all the time,” the boy wrote in his victimimpact statement. He said Kitts destroyed his innocence and that he worries that he’ll never love someone.
The boy has trouble talking about it, and said writing his impact statement for all to hear was like torture.
But he said he now feels the need for someone to finally hear his story. “I’m not running away any longer.”
His hope? To “crawl out of the darkness and not pretend like I’m having fun, but to really feel it. To laugh and love without pain stabbing me in my heart.”
He also wants everyone to know that “this hurts boys just as much as girls.”
The sex crimes were exposed in 2014 when the boy’s mother read some sexually graphic texts on his phone. In all, there were about 15,000 texts between the teacher and student.
Kitts, who apologized in court, learns her fate next week. The Crown has asked for a 12-to-14month jail sentence and the defence has asked the judge for a 90-day sentence to be served intermittently.
The court also heard that Kitts will never work with children again, and will try to build a new career in the construction business.