How Monique Ooms’ lack of jail time stacks up against other teacher sex offence cases

The state’s prosecutor has lost its bid to have a Victorian high school teacher locked up for having sex with a student. Here are the punishments handed down in other recent teacher abuse cases.

Victorian teacher Monique Ooms has avoided jail for repeatedly having sex with a student after an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions against a “merciful” sentence was rejected.

Here’s how other cases of teachers sexually abusing students under their care have played out.

Azar Rahmatzadeh

The Wantirna College teacher blamed loneliness suffered during Covid lockdowns for her plying a 14-year-old student with booze and having sex with him.

The Spanish-language teacher was handed a maximum sentence of two years and six months and minimum of one year in May this year.

Rahmatzadeh received a minimum of one year in jail. Picture: Supplied

The sentence was delivered as Rahmatzadeh sat just metres from the boy and his parents.

Rahmatzadeh, 44, picked the boy up from a train station and drove him back to her Croydon home, telling him to duck his head on the way.

In the weeks after the incident, the teacher sent numerous messages to the boy, telling him he was her “favourite student” and writing “f--king love your guts forever.”

A three-second video the boy took of his teacher sitting on his lap in the stairwell of her home ultimately exposed her wrongdoing.

Malka Leifer

The former principal of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish school received 15 years behind bars for sexually abusing girls at the Adass Israel School in Elsternwick.

Leifer, who had to be extradited to Melbourne from Israel, received a non-parole period of 11 and a half years.

The 56-year-old showed little emotion as she sat through a three-and-a-half hour sentencing hearing in August.

Leifer had to be extradited from Israel. Picture: AFP

After a six-week trial, Leifer was found guilty by a jury of 18 charges, including rape, indecent assault and sexual penetration of a child aged 16 or 17 under care.

The repeated offending occurred between 2004 and 2007.

When sexual abuse allegations first emerged in 2008, Leifer boarded a flight in the middle of the night, allegedly with the help of senior school officials, and fled for Israel.

The judge described her behaviour as “predatory in nature, involving as it did the exploitation and manipulation of two very vulnerable victims over whom she had absolute control”.

David Carnie

The former Emerald Secondary College was jailed for grooming and filming himself having sex with a vulnerable student.

The drama and music teacher was sentenced to four years and eight months jail in June after pleading guilty to five charges, including sexual penetration of a child and involving a child in the production of abuse material.

Carnie preyed upon a vulnerable student. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Carnie was found to have groomed a year 11 student and had sex with her on 30 to 40 occasions over an 18-month period, including in a cupboard in the school’s drama room and in his car.

The judge said Carmody, 51, had preyed upon a female student who struggled with mental health issues and bullying.

Kayla Rizzo

The junior Melbourne teacher told her teenage student she was “willing to risk” her job to have sex with him.

Rizzo, 25, in March was sentenced to three years and nine months’ imprisonment with a minimum of two years after she pleaded guilty to sexual penetration, grooming and possessing child abuse material of a person under 16.

Over a five-month period in 2021, the pair had sex on approximately 15 occasions, either in her car or at her home.

She also sent the boy thousands of messages, most of which were sexual in nature, and filmed them having sex.

Monique Ooms

The former Sale Secondary teacher was spared jail after an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd was rejected on Tuesday.

Monique Ooms was spared jail over her offending. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Ooms, who is 23 weeks pregnant, was sentenced to a four-year community corrections order with 300 hours community work after pleading guilty to four charges of sexual penetration with her student.

Those offences carry a maximum 10 years’ jail.

The boy was aged 16 and 17 when she had sex with him in her car at a pine forest and at her home in 2022.