In an affidavit tendered to the hearing, the sister said the teacher escalated communications with the student after she left school, telling the student in April 2017 that "she had romantic feelings for her". "In 2017, I observed [the teacher] would tell things to [my sister] which were more related to a romantic relationship than a friendship ... I believe [my sister] liked the attention [the teacher] gave her, but was really confused by it all," she wrote. The teacher also told the student words to the effect of "I don't want to wait around forever", the sister said. The lawyer for the Victorian Institute of Teaching, Tracy Were, said the teacher told colleagues before the student graduated that "in a few weeks [their relationship] won't be an issue". The teacher said she was giving the student 12 months to decide if she wanted to be in a romantic relationship, Ms Were told the hearing.

Ms Were pointed to incidents such as the teacher and student having a lightsabre battle before parent-teacher interviews and regular evening phone calls in 2016 as evidence of the unprofessional relationship. She said the two never engaged in sexual conduct but on one occasion, the teacher allowed the student to put her legs across her lap. The student's mother said in her evidence that the relationship led to her daughter becoming a "sullen and snappy teenager that worries about everything". The teen's sister also become concerned that the teacher would ask her unsolicited questions about her private life at school. The mother wrote to the teacher, requesting she refrain from her behaviour in June 2016 then again in August, which the teacher ignored, according to Ms Were.

"Rather, the teacher continued with the relationship with the student ... due at least in part to the teacher's desire to commence a relationship with the student once she ceased to be a student at the school", when a power imbalance would still be in play, Ms Were said. The teacher's lawyer Cassie Serpell said her client accepted the allegations and had come to terms with her transgressions while working at a different school since 2016. The woman was a youth leader at her Christian church before becoming a teacher and failed to establish professional boundaries at school, Ms Serpell said. She was a dedicated teacher with a "good relational approach to students" but that "morphed" over time with this student. "Unfortunately, that dedication was the trap for the unwary, that led down that ... slope and morphed into friendship," she said.