Pedophile Catholic teacher Gaye Grant to appeal conviction

A disgraced female Catholic school teacher who sexually exploited a vulnerable boy in the Illawarra in the 1970s has withdrawn an application for bail ahead of an attempt to appeal her conviction.

Pedophile Catholic teacher Gaye Grant was jailed for six years and nine months in December, 2022, for sexually abusing a student in the 1970s. Inset a class photo with Grant as the teacher in the 1970s.

A disgraced Catholic school teacher who sexually exploited a vulnerable boy in the Illawarra during the 1970s has flagged her intention to appeal her conviction.

Gaye Grant, 77, is 14 months into a jail sentence of six years and nine months after she pleaded guilty to maintaining an unlawful relationship with a child.

The NSW Supreme Court has now confirmed Grant will appeal her conviction in the Court of Criminal Appeal, with a callover mention set for February 29.

It is understood the appeal may relate to recent judgments about the legality of charging women with certain historic offences under legislation which only outlawed offences perpetrated by men against other males when homosexuality was criminalised in NSW.

The woman had also intended to apply for appeals bail at Wollongong District Court on Tuesday before she withdrew the application and it was dismissed.

Gaye Grant entering Wollongong courthouse in December, 2022. Picture: Dylan Arvela

During Grant’s sentencing in December, 2022, Wollongong District Court heard she used her status as the “cool teacher” at Albion Park’s St Paul’s Catholic Primary School to take advantage of a boy who was as young as 10 more than four decades ago.

The court heard Grant raped the boy multiple times over a two-year period with her offending extending from the classroom to the bedroom when her family wasn’t at her Oak Flats home some five minutes from the school.

Gaye Grant taught at St Paul’s Catholic Primary School during the 1970s. Picture: Dylan Arvela

The victim began to realise what Grant was doing was wrong and began to distance himself, however, the court heard she wrote him a love letter on a piece of paper from a school notebook.

The letter read: “[Victim], I apologise for upsetting you. Can we still be together? I still love you and miss you. Love, Gaye OOOXXX”.

The court heard the victim reported the abuse to police in 2021, with a surveillance device warrant taken out 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.”

Grant was arrested at Lake Illawarra Command a few days later.

In a victim impact statement, the man told the court the abuse had left him with a “lifelong burden”.

He 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”.

In sentencing, Judge Andrew Haesler said Grant had not shown remorse for her crimes and 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”.

Judge Haesler imposed 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.

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