Ex-Calgary teacher jailed for illicit relationship
CA LGA RY — A former Calgary Catholic school teacher has been sentenced to two years in federal prison and must be registered as a sex offender for 20 years after she pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation for an illicit relationship with a teenage male student last year.
Provincial court Judge Sean Dunnigan meted out the sentence to Jennifer Marie Mason, 30, on Tuesday after accepting a joint submission by Crown prosecutor Vicki Faulkner and defence lawyer Simon Lord.
The boy, who was 14 when the relationship began and 16 when it was discovered and reported to police, declined to be a part of the process and said he was not victimized, Faulkner told court. “He said if Mason was sentenced to jail, he’d go to jail for her,” Faulkner said.
Nevertheless, Dunnigan called the relationship between the teacher and boy “unacceptable, illegal and damaging,” and said the victim will come to realize that some day.
“This is not a victimless crime. There are victims: Family, the community, friends, yourself, many victims,” Dunnigan said.
“It comes out here when there is a breach of trust and grooming, insinuation into the life of the student and family. That damage may not have come out yet, but it will. It may be a slow, ticking bomb, but it ticks.”
Lord said the offence has been devastating to his client, as she has lost her marriage, her home, all of her friends, her job and her career as a result of the charges and pretrial publicity.
“She has been publicly shamed to a high degree,” Lord said. “There is no minimization of it.”
Faulkner earlier said the teacher and her then-former student were caught having sex in her parked car by residents of the northwest Dalhousie neighbourhood last Nov. 23, and that police pursued it when they saw the extensive age difference.
The prosecutor noted there was no evidence they had sex prior to the boy’s 16th birthday the previous summer, thus the acceptance of a plea to exploitation and withdrawing other charges of sexual assault, sexual interference and sexual counselling of a minor.
She said, however, that during the 2011-12 school year when the boy was in junior high at Our Lady of Assumption, he and Mason communicated regularly by text messages, Skype, email, Facebook and other social media. Faulkner noted that they would meet and have sex in her car, in hotels and at her home numerous times.
She also said that when she was on her honeymoon in Europe in the summer of 2012, she emailed the boy numerous times. After she returned, they met and kissed at a public park. A year later, Faulkner said, Mason sent him a happy birthday greeting that said: “I’m yours forever, you own my heart, you rule my world, you are my king, my best friend, my lover, forever. I love you more than you will understand.”
Mason spent two months in custody prior to sentencing, but that time was applied toward a breach of her bail conditions for allegedly contacting the victim in May.
Police previously said the passerby’s call to police about “inappropriate interaction” between two occupants of the parked vehicle uncovered the months-long illicit relationship between the teacher and teenage boy, who previously attended classes at her school.