Veteran former St Colomba’s College Essendon teacher Michelle Grant sexually abused student

A former Melbourne Catholic girls school art teacher sexually abused a student — including drawing her nude in a Titanic-style erotic act — during a protracted period of depraved torment.

Michelle Grant pleaded guilty to sexual penetration of a 16 or 17 year old child under care, supervision or authority. LinkedIn.

A former Melbourne Catholic girls school art teacher sexually abused a student — including drawing her nude in a Titanic-style erotic act — during a protracted period of depraved torment.

Michelle Grant, 62, was sentenced at the County Court on Friday to six months behind bars after pleading guilty to sexual penetration of a child under care, supervision or authority.

Grant, a former veteran St Columba’s College Essendon teacher, groomed and sexually violated a student in the early 1990s.

Grant, who taught art and textiles at the Essendon Catholic school from the 1980s until she was fired in 2022, targeted the 14-year-old victim and “intimacy grew”.

The court heard Grant groomed and wrote the victim letters telling her she “loved her”.

Grant, who also pleaded guilty to indecent assault, wove a “web of lies to keep the relationship alive”, the court was told.

Grant, who was married at the time, placed herself into a “position of trust” with the victim.

Grant also had dinner with the victim’s parents and siblings, organised with the victim’s mother to spend time with the child and infiltrated the victim’s friendship group.

Grant also hosted “sleep overs” and took the student on theatre outings and trips to the country with her husband and other family and friends of the victim.

The predator would “slip away” to get “physical” with the child while on these country trips.

Granted lured the child into sleeping over at her Moonee Ponds home after she told the victim others will be there.

Grant, who was the only person present during the sleep over, used the opportunity to pounce on the child and stick her tongue in the victim’s mouth.

“You can’t tell anyone … I could go to jail for this,” Grant told the victim.

Grant, a mother of two, dumped her husband shortly after “awakening a realisation” she was a “lesbian”.

Grant moved to Essendon where she escalated her sexual offending towards the victim as the fiend “explored her newly found sexuality”.

Grant also forced the victim to pose naked as she drew her in a vile recreation of the iconic scene from the Titanic.

Grant and the student watched a “lesbian movie” and kissed on the couch during another sordid sleep over.

Grant recreated the scenes of the lewd movie and sexually abused the child.

The victim graduated high school then attempted to distance herself from Grant and end the relationship.

However, Grant used “emotional blackmail” to try and maintain the “sexual relationship” and slapped the victim in the face when the child finally ended the ordeal.

The court heard Grant paid for the victim to undergo therapy for the trauma years after the sexual abuse ended.

Sign up to the northern suburbs Leader newsletters

Grant taught at St Columba’s “without consequence” until police informed the education department of the charges in 2022.

Grant was deregistered and banned from teaching after she pleaded guilty to her vile sexual offending.

Judge Gregory Lyon said Grant committed “repugnant” and “utterly unconscionable” acts.

“(The) sustained grooming and complex infiltration of the victim’s friends, family and her perception of herself … (left the victim suffering) real, deep and lifelong harm,” Judge Lyon said.

Judge Lyon also said Grant’s “appalling transgression” as a “trusted teacher” left the victim with “shame, grief and guilt”.

Judge Lyon also highlighted Grant had “gone on teaching for some 30 years without consequence”.

Grant was convicted and handed an 18-month jail term but 12 months of the sentence was suspended.

[e-mail]