Paedophile Catholic teacher Gaye Grant jailed for historic child sex offences

Justice has finally been served on a former Illawarra teacher who exploited a vulnerable 10-year-old boy four decades ago. Read her victim’s “moving” statement to the court.

Paedophile teacher Gaye Grant in a school photo in the 1970s.

She was the “cool teacher”, however, disgraced Catholic school teacher Gaye Grant has been jailed for sexually exploiting a vulnerable boy over two years during the 1970s.

The 76-year-old wore a veil as she staggered into Wollongong District Court on Tuesday where she was sentenced to six years and nine months in jail after previously pleading guilty to maintaining an unlawful relationship with a child.

Grant taught at St Paul’s Catholic Primary School in Albion Park for more than two decades, during which time she took advantage of the boy after he revealed to her he’d been assaulted by an older male during a sporting event.

Documents tendered in court indicated Grant’s sinful crimes against the boy who was as young as 10 extended from the classroom to the bedroom when her family wasn’t at her home on Theodore St in Oak Flats - a five-minute drive from the school.

The documents stated Grant raped the boy multiple times and professed her love for him on a piece of scrap paper in which she begged him to take her back after he ended their “relationship”.

The initial offending included Grant urging the boy to fondle and suck on her breast and on another occasion she masturbated the naked boy in her bathroom.

The offending also occurred within the walls of the school with Grant beckoning the boy to sit on her lap after school before kissing him and ushering him home.

The judge described Gaye Grant as “old and frail” and “not robust or well-equipped for prison life”. Picture: Dylan Arvela

However, Grant’s offending became increasingly sexualised and on one evening, Grant invited the boy over and fed him sweets in her a caravan parking in her yard before raping him after which she expressed her love for him.

The court heard other instances where Grant raped the boy, including at a Shoalhaven Heads caravan park, with the woman going on to tell the boy they needed to have an alibi if they were to be caught by her husband.

The documents stated the boy began to realise what Grant was doing wasn’t normal or right and began to distance himself from her.

However, at a party at Grant’s house, she pulled him into the caravan and asked why he’d been avoiding her.

Gaye Grant taught at St Paul’s Catholic Primary School for more than 20 years. Picture: Dylan Arvela

“I am breaking it off, I am not doing this anymore,” the boy said which led to Grant melting down in tears.

Grant was desperate to continue the unlawful relationship, so she tore out a piece of paper from a school notebook and penned words to the effect of “[victim], I apologise for upsetting you. Can we still be together? I still love you and miss you. Love, Gaye OOOXXX”.

The victim disclosed the abuse to his wife at the end of 2019, however, when he sat down to tell his parents the conversation became heated, leaving the victim feeling as though they were more concerned about their standing within the Catholic community.

Gaye Grant in a school photo in 1998. Picture: Supplied

In mid-2021, the victim reported the atrocities to police who instigated a surveillance device warrant to tap calls between the man and Grant.

“Please don’t do anything terrible to me,” Grant begged down the line.

“I’ve been saying to God, all the pain he has given me, back problems and everything else. I take it as penance because I am very sorry for anything I ever did … You know, I am very sorry.

“If I could turn back time nothing would ever happen, I would not go near anybody … I have had my issues too. It was nothing intentional ever to hurt you because I thought the world of you. You know that.”

Grant was arrested at Lake Illawarra Command a few days later where she agreed she had spent time with the victim.

She admitted she had penned a letter to the boy, but said it read something like “Please, please, please, [victim] come over and talk to me” and she recalled him throwing it in the bin.

Gaye Grant in a school photo from the early 1990s. Picture: Supplied

Grant told police she didn’t have sex with the boy “as many times as he’s made out” before telling them she had told him ”you don’t have to do this. I never, ever encouraged him to have sex with me”.

The deflections continued as Grant tried to shift blame onto the victim, telling the officers the incidents started with the boy kissing her which led to them having sex.

In court on Tuesday, the victim delivered a “moving” impact statement where he divulged how Grant “stripped him of his innocence” and “restricted him from reaching his full potential”.

The man told the court he had experienced “intense trauma” and his crippling mental health led to his employment being ”terminated”.

“I’ve had to live with this embarrassing and shameful feeling of guilt for [more than 40 years],” he said.

Gaye Grant walking into Wollongong Courthouse on Tuesday with her lawyer, Patrick Schmidt. Picture: Dylan Arvela

“I originally planned to carry this to my grave... It’s been a lifelong burden.”

The man described Grant treating him like a “teacher’s pet” and a “toy doll” that would “pick him up and groomed him and put him back on the shelf when her family was around”.

The court was also told the man revealed the crimes in a confessional, however, nothing came from it other than “penance and prayers”.

Judge Andrew Haesler spent more than two hours to reach his final judgment which he said was “shaped” by many factors including the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The judge said he was “moved” by the victim’s impact statement, adding the man is “not getting the support he should have been getting decades ago”.

He also rejected Grant’s punishment should be reduced due to the “extra curial punishment” inflicted by an article in The Daily Telegraph which unearthed her shocking offending with the judge labelling it a “fair report of proceedings”.

“I do not find she is remorseful, but I do accept she cannot explain why she did what she did,” Judge Haesler said when handing down the sentence.

“She did not lose her job in the 1970s as she would have, but she also lost the opportunity to have these matters dealt with when the maximum sentences were much lower.”

The judge described Grant as “old and frail” and “not robust or well-equipped for prison life”, but said she had to be punished for the lack of “common humanity” shown to the victim during a period where “she cared only for herself”.

The sentence included a non-parole period of three years and four months meaning Grant could be eligible for parole in April, 2026 - four months before her 80th birthday.