WHAT should the punishment should be for a 47-year-old male teacher who asks one of his young female students to have sex with him?

He tells the 10-year-old autistic girl he’s in love with her, gets her name tattooed on his chest, and bombards her with text messages.

Should he get two years in jail? Five? Ten?

What would you say if I told you the teacher was a woman and the victim a boy? Would that change things?

Of course not. No doubt you agree with me that paedophilia is paedophilia regardless of whether the perpetrator is a man or a woman.

So why is it that schoolteacher Diane Brimble avoided prison for this very crime, copping a mere 200 hours of community service and a two-year community corrections order although she begged a 10-year-old boy to have sex with her?

I can only think she got away with a lesser sentence because she is a woman, and because she is a mother of eight children.

There has been widespread condemnation of Brimble’s sentence because it seems to be not only totally inadequate, but well out of step with penalties handed out to men who commit similar crimes.

As the mother of a 10-year-old boy, I found the court transcript heartbreaking reading. Apparently, Brimble hugged the boy and asked him if he wanted to sleep with her. He didn’t even know what she meant. He told her he wasn’t old enough to have sex, but Brimble told him: “You are when you are at my house”.

Police accused Brimble of also presenting the boy with a suitcase containing a pregnancy test, condoms, truth-or-dare cards and sex toys, as well as exposing her breasts.

As I see it, Brimble’s crime was totally abhorrent on many levels.

First, she was the child’s schoolteacher, and thus in a position of both power and responsibility. Her actions were not only a betrayal of the little boy and his family, but a gross betrayal of all teachers.

Second, the boy in question has Asperger syndrome, so was particularly vulnerable.

Third, Brimble knew the boy’s parents, and clearly breached their trust in her. In fact, she tried to come between the boy and his parents, making him believe she loved him, but they did not.

Fourth, she even involved her own children in her offending. When the boy moved schools she toured his new school and attempted to move her kids there.

Sadly, this is not the only example of women getting off lightly despite committing horrific sexual crimes that completely destroy the lives of their young victims.

In Victoria, a mother who drugged her 13-year-old daughter and allowed her sex-offender boyfriend to photograph and indecently assault her was originally given a non-parole sentence of just one year. On appeal, the sentence was increased.

In South Australia, a 40-year-old woman received a suspended sentence despite having sex with a 15-year-old boy.

In Queensland, a childcare worker who sent nude graphic photos of her 12-year-old daughter to her lover walked free from court after receiving a suspended sentence.

In the United Kingdom, a teacher who sent a 16-year-old former pupil a topless selfie was banned from the classroom for five years but escaped criminal conviction.

It is hard to imagine men being treated in the same way. It does seem there is a double standard, whereby male pedophiles are regarded as evil, while female pedophiles are just viewed as mixed up or overly emotional.

It’s pertinent, I think, that Brimble said she was in love with the boy and claimed the offending occurred in the context of an obsessive and misdirected affection.

However, this is far from the case. She did not treat this boy with affection; she ruined his childhood and innocence by treating him as a sexual commodity. The impact on him was so severe that he had to be treated with antipsychotic medication and moved out of the community.

So why did prosecutors not call for Brimble to be jailed? A two-year corrections order is nothing compared to the lifetime of pain her young victim and his family will no doubt experience. The fact that she was not convicted of sexually abusing the boy in a physical manner shouldn’t matter. What she did do was bad enough.

To make matters worse, Brimble is on the sex offenders register for only eight years, not for life. How can this be the case given the seriousness of her actions?

County Court Judge Mark Taft said Brimble had good prospects of rehabilitation and was unlikely to reoffend. I simply do not believe the same assurances would be extended to a male perpetrator in the same position.

In the end, cases like this make us less trusting of the adults in our children’s lives. Inspiring, dedicated, wonderful teachers end up being viewed with suspicion, which means kids end up missing out on vital mentoring and friendship.

Such cases also make us less trusting of judges and the sentencing system, as we see women and mothers found guilty of abhorrent crimes walking free from court time and time again.

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