Teacher charged with sex crimes headed to trial
Noel Strapp’s case was called briefly in provincial court in St. John’s Friday
A high school teacher charged with sexual offences against a former student is looking to set a date for trial.
The matter of Noel Strapp was called in provincial court in St. John’s Friday, where it was postponed until July 6. A trial date will be set at that time.
Strapp, 38, is charged with sexual assault and sexual exploitation related to incidents alleged to have occurred between 2014 and 2016.
The police investigation that led to the charges against Strapp began in November 2019, when the RNC received a report that it subsequently turned over to the RCMP. That, in turn, led to a “lengthy investigation,” the RCMP said in a news release in January, when Strapp was charged and released on a number of conditions to await his court date. One of those conditions banned him from being alone with anyone under the age of 18, though Strapp, who has been suspended from teaching since the start of the police investigation, has since successfully made an application to vary that order to allow an exception for his own children.
A charge of sexual exploitation, like the one Strapp is facing, carries a mandatory minimum jail sentence of one year upon conviction when the Crown proceeds by indictment, which it has in this case.
Strapp is one of two teachers employed by the Newfoundland and Labrador English School District currently facing that charge. St. John’s high school teacher Krysta Grimes, 33, has pleaded not guilty to sexually exploiting a student between March and June 2018 in an unrelated case. She has chosen a jury trial, which had had been scheduled to take place in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court beginning March 29, but was postponed until November after the recent COVID-19 lockdown.
Strapp is well known in local rugby and wrestling circles, having been named Sport NL’S coach of the year for wrestling in 2016, and serving as coach of the provincial wrestling team at the Canada Games in Winnipeg in 2017.