Teacher Branded "Evil" For Asking 10-Year-Old Boy For Sex

Diane Brimble leaves the Melbourne County Court   

A Primary school teacher who asked a 10-year-old boy to have sex with her has been described by the victim’s parents as an “evil woman” who stole their son’s innocence.

Hamilton teacher Diane Brimble, 47, had the child’s name with an infinity symbol tattooed to her chest, sent him Facebook and text messages and had images of him on her phone.

A County Court jury found the mother of eight guilty of committing an indecent act with a child under 16 in August while pursuing a relationship with him in 2013.

Judge Mark Taft told a plea hearing Brimble drove the minor to her house before offering to have sex with him, but he rejected her advances.

“He said he wasn’t old enough to have sex and she said ‘you are when you’re at my house’,” Judge Taft said.

Police had also accused Brimble of presenting the boy with a suitcase containing a pregnancy test, condoms, truth-or-dare cards and sex toys, as well as exposing her breasts to him.

Brimble is expected to escape jail but will never teach again.

The boy’s father, who cannot be named because it would identify the victim, the said the family had been forced to move, and his son made to repeat his education, because of Brimble’s predatory behaviour.

He said his son, who has Asperger's, believed Brimble was a “horrible woman who cast a spell on him”.

“She tried to manipulate (boy’s name) to make him think she loved him and his parents did not.

“I feel sick every time I think of my son’s name tattooed onto her body,” he said in a statement read in court by Crown prosecutor Patrick Bourke.

He described himself as “the father of a child who was the victim of sexual assault” and branded Brimble an “evil woman” who robbed his son of his innocence.

The boy’s mother said her son had been driven to self harm by Brimble’s actions: “a hell Brimble’s predatory actions thrust upon him.”

“I feel sickened ... as a mother ... that she did this under the guise of motherly love,” she said in court.

Mr Bourke argued Brimble should be convicted, undergo treatment under a community corrections order and be placed on the sex offenders register.

Barrister Jennifer Clark, acting for Brimble, said despite a difficult life and an abusive marriage her client had fought hard to become a teacher.

Judge Taft said he remained baffled by Brimble’s “pyscho-sexual profile” following a psychological assessment he described as a “barracker’s report”.

“I find Ms Brimble’s conduct as bizarre as any I have ever seen in a courtroom,” he said.

Brimble will be sentenced in the County Court at 10am on Thursday. - Herald Sun