A 27-year-old schoolteacher in Scotland found intimately involved with her student got off with a light punishment, the boy's family has charged.
Eppie Sprung Dawson, an English teacher of St. Joseph's College, was caught having sex with Matthew, then 17, last December, the Daily Mail reported.
Dawson appeared in court in July to face charges over the affair. The teacher was sacked and placed on the sex offenders' list for six months. Her husband also left her.
Matthew recently moved to Dawson's house after an argument with his parents over a petty issue. The former teacher presently works in a hotel bar and has moved Matthew into her former marital home.
Matthew's mother Sheree, however, alleges Dawson got away with a much lighter punishment because she was a woman.
"I'm convinced that if she'd been a male teacher, the courts would have been harder on her," Sheree said.
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"She's getting counselling - that isn't punishment, that's help. What about my son? Who is giving him help? Believe me, he needs it."
Sheree also claimed that Dawson is encouraging her son's estrangement from the family.
"She came and picked him up. She knows she's not welcome in the house, so she sat at the end of the lane and waited for him.
"Any adult worth their salt would have said come on Matthew, let's have a cup of tea but now you need to go back to your family. Instead, she has welcomed him with open arms.
"And now she is free to do what she wants with him... ruin his life if she chooses. As a mother it is impossible to watch. But I can't do a thing," the boy's mother added.