Jackie Hays, a 51-year-old teacher’s aide accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a student, has received a suspended 12-month jail sentence. Hays pled guilty to unlawful sexual activity.
According to reports, Hays “groomed” a 15-year-old student to have sex with her, as she wanted to wait until he was 16 before they had sex. Hays partially blamed a weight-loss drug and an unhappy marriage for her crime.
Court records indicate that Hays and the victim “sexual” text messages, however, Newcastle Local Court magistrate Robert Stone said that “not all messages were of sexual nature, but some involved explicitly sexual talk and the offender said the messages were raunchy.”
She has been diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder.
via Daily Mail:
Prosecutors had called for Hays to be jailed.
She would have faced a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail if the case had been heard in the District Court, but prosecutors agreed to have the matter dealt with in the Local Court where the maximum penalty was two years.
Hays was initially charged in mid-2017 with five offences alleging she had been sending explicit text messages and phoning two students, but four of the charges were dropped after she agreed to plead guilty to one count of grooming a child for unlawful sexual activity.
Hays is just the latest teacher to be charged for inappropriate conduct. Over the course of just a few months, educators across the country were arrested for entering into an inappropriate relationship with their students, Tennessee teacher Janet Smothers, LaToya Parker, Florida teacher Caroline Lawson, 26-year-old Allyson Moran and Katherine Ross Ridenhour were all arrested on similar charges. A woman named Kayla Sprinkles was arrested in North Carolina for similar sexual crimes.
The list goes on to include 22-year-old Oklahoma science teacher Hunter Day, 28-year-old teacher Megan Kotarski, 23-year-old history teacher Michelle Schiffer, 29-year-old Alyssia Marie Reddy, special education teacher Jordan Ondish and 28-year-old Samantha Fitzpatrick have all been allegedly carrying on inappropriate relationships with their students.
In addition, 31-year-old Nicole Marie Andrews, 32-year-old Jessica Langford, 29-year-old Andrea Baber, 27-year-old Robin Dunlap, 27-year-old Jennifer Olajire-Aro have also been charged with these charges.
34-year-old Miranda Nicole Pauley was charged with similar crimes, Nancy Leigh Ann Brann, a former Christian school teacher, was arrested for having sex with a student, Coine Audiat pleaded no contest to having sex with a minor in 2016 and 23-year-old Darci Lake was arrested for an inappropriate relationship. 27-year-old Brittany Zamora from Arizona was arrested on similar charges. Keri Hoffman, 35, was also arrested for an alleged relationship with a student. More recently, 29-year-old Tiffany Ranweiler-Oblander and 33-year-old Maren Oates were arrested on similar charges.
