Female high school teacher, 28, who had sex with a 15-year-old student is unmasked after she’s found guilty – as court hears the way she groomed the boy
The identity of a former trainee teacher who groomed and sexually assaulted a 15-year-old student can be revealed after a gag order restricting the publication of her name and the school involved was lifted by the court.
Petra Shasha, 28, was found guilty in the ACT Supreme Court last week of sexually abusing, grooming and assaulting the schoolboy.
Her name was already known when she was arrested in February 2022, which meant the end of the ‘relationship’ she had built with the then 15-year-old.
The court heard Shasha first formed a bond with the St Edmunds College student when she worked as a trainee teacher at the school for three weeks in late 2020.
Despite being 24 at the time, Shasha and the boy grew so close that the teen thought they were a couple.
Prosecutors told the court she methodically groomed the young boy, giving him lifts, designer clothes and other gifts and wiring him money so he would participate in a sex act.
After a day of deliberation, the jury found Shasha guilty of persistent sexual abuse of a child, providing pornographic material to a young person, grooming a child and committing an act of indecency.
However, Shasha was found not guilty on charges of separate grooming and committing an act of indecency towards a child.
Former teacher Petra Shasha (pictured) has been found guilty of having a sexual and romantic relationship with a 15-year-old schoolboy between late 2020 and February 2022
Her victim told police that Shasha shamelessly spent time with him in public and made plans for what they would do if they met someone they knew.
“We’ve always said: if we see someone we know, just keep walking,” he said, according to the newspaper Canberra Times.
“We didn’t want anyone to see it.”
The court heard Shasha never directly taught the schoolboy but would hang out with his group of friends at lunchtime.
He then contacted her via social media after she finished her stint at the school, where they communicated regularly while she worked at the nearby Canberra Girls Grammar School.
She denied indecently assaulting the boy twice – once in a David Jones dressing room and another time in a car – but was found guilty of the former.
However, Shasha admitted that she sent him numerous explicit videos and photos of herself, but only after he turned 16, the age of consent.
A jury in the ACT Supreme Court found the then 24-year-old (pictured) groomed him by buying him designer clothes and transferring him money before indecently assaulting him in a car.
However, some ‘revealing… cleavage’ photos of herself were sent to him when he was just 15, but she claimed to have a ‘reasonable belief’ that he was a year older.
The schoolboy admitted lying to Shasha about his age and class at school, which her lawyer said at the start of the trial “provides her with a defense.”
The court heard Shasha contacted the victim after finding out police were investigating their relationship to tell him he ‘is not a victim’.
A separate recording caught her saying: ‘baby, please don’t fuck me, my ears are burning’.
Shasha remains on bail pending her sentencing in February.