Former city teacher charged with sexual assault of student

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This article was published 08/04/2024 (515 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former Winnipeg teacher has been charged with having a sexual relationship with a student.

Police began investigating in February after being told about a sexually exploitative relationship between a female former physical education teacher at Collège Béliveau and a female former student who was under 18 years old at the time.

Investigators believe the student was groomed into a sexual relationship by the teacher, who would allegedly engage in inappropriate physical conduct, including on school trips. A news release from police said “abuse and coercion” from the teacher continued after the student was no longer at the grade 7-12 school in the Windsor Park neighbourhood.

Amanda Rachelle Sherrett, 41, of Winnipeg, is charged with sexual assault, sexual exploitation and luring a person under 18 years of age by means of telecommunication. She was released under Crown-authorized conditions.

Sherrett is accused of committing the sex offences between March 1, 2022 and April 5, 2023, court records state.

Winnipeg police Const. Dani McKinnon said investigators don’t know of any other victims at this time, but encouraged anyone with information to come forward.

“When there’s certain scenarios with schools or a person in authority in a school or a sporting organization, there’s always potential for other victims or survivors to be out there,” she said.

The Louis Riel School Division said in a statement Monday the division is conducting its own investigation into the allegations.

The statement said the teacher was “removed from the workplace” after the division became aware of the allegations March 18, but did not say if Sherrett was fired, quit or suspended.

”This news will be distressing and may be overwhelming for students, their families, as well as staff. Our thoughts of care and concern go out to the victim and their loved ones,” the statement said.

Supports such as clinical services are being made available for students, the school division said.

Sherrett has never been convicted of a crime in Manitoba, court records show. Her next scheduled court date is May 22.

According to data obtained by the Free Press in late 2023, 11 Manitoba teachers had their teaching licences suspended, voluntarily suspended or revoked from January 2022 to mid-October 2023.

Six of those were for charges of sexual misconduct, including three with charges specific to children, including luring a child and making sexually explicit material available to a child. One case was in 2022, where the teacher’s certificate was voluntarily surrendered, and the other two were in 2023, where both certificates were suspended. All three were pending a hearing at the time the documents were provided.

One additional teacher had their certificate cancelled in 2023 after they were placed on the child abuse registry.

“When there’s certain scenarios with schools or a person in authority in a school or a sporting organization, there’s always potential for other victims or survivors to be out there.”–Winnipeg police Const. Dani McKinnon

The remaining disciplinary actions came from two cases of professional misconduct and two charges involving second-degree murder. Eight out of 11 cases were pending a hearing.

It’s common for victims of sexual exploitation by a teacher to only come forward after the victim is an adult, and rarer for children to come forward, said Anne-Marie Robinson, the co-founder of the advocacy group Stop Educator Child Exploitation. While seeing a teacher continue misconduct with a victim past school age isn’t as common, it does happen, and is a sign of long-term grooming.

“When you’ve been groomed by a person in a position of authority, you’re left feeling very confused and powerless, you’re often isolated by the person who’s groomed you,” Robinson, herself a victim of sexual abuse by a teacher, said. “When you become an adult, you have to reprocess what happened to you through the mind of an adult. When it’s happening to you through the mind of a child or a teenager, it’s very difficult to understand what’s happening to you.”

Former high school football coach Kelsey McKay pleaded guilty last July to nine counts of sexual assault and two counts of luring involving nine teenage victims he had coached while at Vincent Massey Collegiate and Churchill High School. McKay has yet to be sentenced and remains free on bail.

A St. Norbert Collegiate teacher was found guilty late last year of sexual assault and sexual interference of a student, who was 15 at the time of the crimes. Chasity Jenna Deah Findlay, 38, is awaiting sentencing.

A former Grant Park High School teacher was accused of sexually assaulting three students between 2019-20. The charges against her were stayed in 2021 after she agreed to surrender her teaching certificate and voluntarily place herself on the provincial child abuse registry.

In 2022, a teacher and rugby coach in Steinbach was accused of sexually assaulting three female students. Charges against him were stayed last winter.

Charges were also stayed against a Winnipeg junior high substitute teacher in 2023 after allegations of sexual assault and luring.

Education minister Nello Altomare has promised to follow through on legislation brought forward by the former Progressive Conservative government. Bill 35 would establish an online registry allowing the public to see if a teacher has been found guilty of misconduct. An independent commissioner would be tasked with reviewing complaints about educators by January 2025.

A spokesperson for the minister said there are adequate funds budgeted to establish the commissioner’s role and office in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025.

A 2022 Canadawide study of child sexual abuse in schools published by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection found at least 252 staff at K-12 schools committed or were accused of committing offences against children between 2017 and 2021.

“When you become an adult, you have to reprocess what happened to you through the mind of an adult. When it’s happening to you through the mind of a child or a teenager, it’s very difficult to understand what’s happening to you.”–Anne-Marie Robinson

Cases of misconduct involving teachers and students are unique in several ways, said Noni Classen, the Winnipeg-based organization’s director of education and support services. While women are under-represented as perpetrators of sexual misconduct in the wider community, that number becomes more significant inside a educational facility, according to the centre’s research.

Classen called cases when adults abuse their position of trust with both children and their parents “especially egregious.”

“There’s a betrayal of trust that extends beyond the school itself into the entire community,” Classen said.

It’s up to other educators and parents to be aware of boundary-crossing and not be afraid to step in, she said.

“The problem with that is that people do not always equate a boundary transgression with risk, they might see it as poor judgment … but in fact, what we know from the thousands of cases we’ve looked at, is that this always happens in grooming situations,” she said.

Police are asking anyone who wants to speak to an investigator to call the WPS child abuse unit at 204-986-3296.

— with files from Katrina Clarke

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

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