Pregnant teacher Monique Ooms may face jail for having sex with Sale Secondary College student

A Sale Secondary College teacher who dodged jail after repeatedly having sex with her student may now be locked up with her newborn baby.

A high school teacher who avoided jail after repeatedly having sex with her student now faces the prospect of being sent behind bars with her newborn baby.

Sale Secondary College teacher Monique Ooms, who is now pregnant, was handed a community corrections order in March after pleading guilty to four counts of sexually penetrating her student, aged 16 or 17, over a month in 2022.

The boy was above the legal age for consent but their “utterly inappropriate relationship” was a breach of the law as he was under her care, supervision and authority.

The offence carries a maximum 10 years jail.

The Director of Public Prosecution is now appealing Ooms’ “merciful” sentence and calling for the 31-year-old to be locked up despite the fact she is now 17-weeks pregnant.

“It is not an uncommon circumstance for female prisoners to have to be dealt with in custody,” senior crown prosecutor Elizabeth Ruddle KC told the Court of Appeal on Friday of Ooms’ baby.

“This is such serious offending, repeated offending, that for the respondent to not be in prison at all it really undermines confidence in the system.”

But defence barrister Jason Gullaci SC called for residual discretion.

The crime occured when Ooms approached her student in mid-2022 to help him after his friend had died, and the pair exchanged details. Picture: David Crosling

He said that Ooms’ pregnancy was deemed high risk because of her mental health and fertility issues, and that she had previously been considered infertile.

Mr Gallaci told the court she had become pregnant in the last week of March — she was sentenced in the Bairnsdale County Court on March 24 — and had found out that the DPP was appealing a month later.

He conceded hers was “a lenient sentence for this type of offending ... merciful”.

But Mr Gallaci said there had been a lack of grooming and coercion in the crime, and a lack of predatory behaviour.

“This was a sentence that can be justified,” Mr Gallaci said.

The crime occured when Ooms approached her student in mid-2022 to help him after his friend had died, and the pair exchanged details.

Friendly texts of support escalated to “Love you” and “I miss you”, with Ooms then sending him pictures in her underwear.

Later, he would sneak out of his home where they had sex in her car and at her Gippsland house.

The school later received information that was passed on to police, and she was suspended from teaching and charged.

In sentencing Ooms in March, Judge John Smallwood found she’d suffered extra curial punishment in that she’d become a ‘pariah’. Picture: David Crosling

In sentencing Ooms in March, Judge John Smallwood found she’d suffered extra curial punishment in that she’d become a “pariah” and had been subjected to threats in the street, being yelled at and ridiculed.

He handed her a four-year community corrections order with 300 hours of community work.

But Ms Ruddle said she should have been jailed, telling a full bench at the Court of Appeal that Ooms’ sexual trysts with her student were unprotected, were planned and happened on multiple occasions.

“Children — even older children — deserve the protection of the law as it stands,” she said.

“A community corrections order in these circumstances is not an available disposition.”

Mr Gallaci said it had been a “pretty tumultuous period” for Ooms, who continued to receive abusive phone calls.

He said on one occasion she was phoned by someone claiming to be a cop who said, “I heard you’ve been touching kids at some other high school”.

Despite being the target of abuse, he said she’d “made the most of that lenient sentence” and already completed about half her prescribed community work.

Judges Justice Richard Niall, Justice Maree Kennedy and Justice Cameron Macaulay have reserved their decision.