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A former NSW teacher has had a historical child sex abuse conviction quashed, becoming the second person to successfully argue women could not be legally responsible for the crime under laws in place at the time.
Gaye Grant, who is now in her late 70s, was jailed as a paedophile in December 2022 for abusing a boy in the 1970s after pleading guilty to maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a child.
The boy first met Grant when he was 10 and confided in her about being bullied. The alleged abuse began with the student sitting on Grant’s lap and fondling her before escalating to kissing and eventually sexual intercourse.
After the boy tried to distance himself from the teacher in the late 1970s, she wrote to him saying she loved him.
After almost 15 months behind bars, the ex-teacher was released on bail and given leave to appeal in March following the release of another former teacher, Helga Lam, who had historical sexual abuse charges quashed in February.
The allegations against Lam were thrown out in a landmark judgment that said women could not be legally responsible for abusing boys under previous laws that only covered male offenders.
On Friday, the NSW court of criminal appeal upheld Grant’s appeal and quashed her conviction.
She was previously released on bail after a court found the ex-teacher could likely overturn her conviction because of the Lam judgment.
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Grant’s legal team had argued there was precedent for a successful appeal despite a guilty plea if the appellant could not be legally convicted of the offence.
The appeal win voids her district court conviction which led to a six-year jail sentence being imposed. That sentence had been due to expire in September 2029.