Katherine Brook
A GIBRALTAR teacher, Claire Treacy, has been found guilty of engaging in sexual relations with two students and sentenced to 17-weeks in prison.
The 26-year-old of Midtown, Queensway, appeared before the court on May 4, to answer to five counts of sexual activity with two teenagers (then 16 and 17), between 2018 and 2020.
Two months later, Treacy has now been found guilty by the court.
The court heard that Treacy pursued one of the young men, with him sometimes rejecting her advances. She had originally been giving him one-to-one maths tutorial lessons, though she didn’t make any sexual advances during this time.
Messages of their correspondence were shown before the court.
The second young man chose not to press charges against Treacy, and in fact, sent a letter to the court requesting that she be given a lenient sentence – the only reason police knew there had been any contact between the two was due to messages found on her phone.
Although the consenting age in Gibraltar is 16, given that Treacy was a teacher, and in a position of trust, the court considered it a chargeable offence and believed that she ‘abused’ the student-teacher trust.
At the court hearing on July 30, Stipendiary Magistrate Charles Pitto described the 26-year-old as a ‘well regarded teacher’.
He highlighted that the relations were consensual and that, in his view, there was ‘no evidence of grooming’.
He said that nothing indicated ‘manipulative or exploitative behaviour’ on Treacy’s part, but there was ‘planning and secrecy’ involved.
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