Long wait for justice

Former Melbourne music teacher Caroline Mcdougall claims she was lonely and depressed when she molested a 15-year-old Deer Park Secondary College student in her car in 1992. Shortly after the then-34-year-old kissed him and touched his genitals, the boy reported the attack to his mother, who went to the school principal. Mcdougall reportedly then left her job on compassionate grounds, and the case fell silent. In 2016, Mcdougall was finally charged and pleaded guilty to an indecent act with a child under 16. Her lawyer said Mcdougall had spent the 26 years since the offending with a sense of “shame, remorse and self-loathing”, and she was given an eight-month wholly suspended sentence. In an ironic twist, Mcdougall, 61, is now a successful counsellor.