Nova Scotia’s Public Prosecution Service is appealing the sentence handed to a former elementary school teacher who sexually abused two of her former students.
The Crown is asking the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal to impose a new sentence of at least two years in prison.
Amy Hood, 40, of Stellarton, N.S. was convicted in April of sexual interference, sexual exploitation and two counts of luring minors over the Internet for a sexual purpose.
The charges stem from offences involving two boys in 2013, while Hood was a Grade 6 teacher at Thorburn Consolidated School in Thorburn, N.S.
Court heard that Hood had sent sexual text messages to a 15-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy and that she had performed a sexual act on the younger teen.
Court also heard that a psychiatrist diagnosed Hood with bipolar disorder in 2013 and the defence argued that the condition clouded her judgement at the time of the offences.
The Crown had been seeking a four-year prison term while the defence had recommended a conditional sentence.
The charges carry a mandatory minimum sentence of one year in jail, but Judge Del Atwood said during sentencing last month in Pictou provincial court that such a sentence would be “grossly disproportionate” in Hood’s case.
Instead, Atwood sentenced Hood to 15 months under house arrest. With house arrest, Hood will be under electronic supervision. Atwood also sentenced Hood to a 10-year ban on attending areas where young people are gathered, unless she is in the presence of an adult. She must stay at least two kilometres away from her victims, but she will continue to have access to her own children.
Hood must also abstain from alcohol and drugs, other than medical prescriptions.
Hood’s name will be placed on the sex offender registry for life and she must serve two years of probation after serving her sentence.
