" A former Prince Edward Island school counsellor who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a student she used to counsel at an intermediate school has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Bethany Jean Toombs, 42, pleaded guilty to the charge of sexual interference — which is the sexual touching of a person under the age of 16 — earlier this year.
Her lawyer and the Crown had put forward a joint recommendation of five years in prison at a hearing last month, but P.E.I.’s Supreme Court chief justice wanted time to consider the proposal. She ultimately accepted it Friday morning.
“This offence involved a profound and egregious breach of trust,” Chief Justice Tracey Clements said in delivering her oral decision.
She also described the victim in the case as “young and vulnerable.”
CBC News is withholding some details about Toombs’s crime to protect the privacy of the student victim, who was a male under the age of 16 and has been described as having a difficult family background and being high needs.
Toombs sexually abused the boy through sexual intercourse on dozens of occasions outside of the school setting. The abuse happened in the months after their official counselling relationship had ended at East Wiltshire Intermediate School in Cornwall, just outside of Charlottetown."
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PEI school counsellor sentenced to 5 years in prison for sexual abuse of student
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