Defence and prosecution deliver closing arguments in Janelle Fletcher child sexual abuse trial
Janelle Colville Fletcher, 40, is contesting allegations that she groomed and sexually abused the underage girl some years ago and appeared again on Monday at the South Australian District Court before Judge Joanne Fuller.
The prosecution, led by Chris Allen, allege Ms Fletcher abused the girl in various locations and also that she communicated with her and another teenage girl to make them amenable to sexual activity.
Some of the alleged offending happened when the two girls and Ms Fletcher were alone together in a room, the prosecution said, with the teacher allegedly performing a lap dance on a chair.
She then allegedly 'dared' the two girls to kiss each other and asked if they would 'date' each other.
That same night, Mr Allen said, Ms Fletcher then spent time alone with one of the girls and touched her genital area.
The alleged grooming and abuse of the girl then went on for months at various locations, the prosecution said, including the home of Ms Fletcher and in Ms Fletcher's car.
Alongside oral evidence from the alleged victims, the prosecution presented a series of texts, emails and photographs to support its case, including a photo of Ms Fletcher and the girl kissing at a cinema photo booth.
In his closing address, Mr Allen said the 'objective evidence' of the photo booth kiss showed an 'unlawful sexual act'.
He argued further that the 'sheer volume' of photos of Ms Fletcher and the girl together suggested a sexual relationship.
'They look like girlfriends (in the photographs) … in a relationship between girlfriends,' Mr Allen said.
In her testimony from last week, Ms Fletcher said the photo booth kiss was a 'pretend kiss' she did not want or mean to happen.
'It was meant to be a pretend kiss like we had done previously where our lips don't actually touch, and in that particular photo we got close and she did sort of pull me in and the photo went off, yeah,' Ms Fletcher said.
There is dispute between the defence and prosecution about the correct sequence order of photos from the booth.
The prosecution says the correct sequence runs from top to bottom in the order of one, two, three and then four.
In 'photo 4', Ms Fletcher appears happy and the prosecution argues this shows she was happy to kiss the girl and not shocked or upset by it.
Ms Fletcher and her defence team, led by Andrew Culshaw, claim that photo was taken before the kiss and should not be seen as approval of the act, with the correct sequence of photos running one, two, four and then three.
Mr Culshaw also argued the photo did not show child sexual abuse because the girl had turned 17 at the time of the photo, and so she was therefore not a child when the kiss happened.
The defence argued Ms Fletcher was also no longer in a position of authority at the time.
'What Your Honour has, in my submission, is evidence of a kiss at a time when it was legal,' Mr Culshaw said.
The prosecution also argued that a series of emotionally expressive emails from Ms Fletcher to the girl revealed the 'true nature' of the relationship between them.
In one email, Ms Fletcher told the girl 'I want something serious not something short term'.
In others, she said 'my feelings for you are not lust but love' and 'right now, we can't be open. Right now we will have to continue as we are in secret …'
Ms Fletcher had earlier argued the emails showed non-sexual 'love' for the girl, but Mr Allen dismissed that argument on Monday as 'absurd'.
'This is not 'I love you' in some sort of Catholic way,' Mr Allen said.
Mr Culshaw, in his closing address, acknowledged under questioning from Judge Fuller that the emails appeared 'terrible' on a first or literal reading in that they seemed to suggest the pair had been in a sexual relationship.
But he argued a deeper reading of the emails fit with Ms Fletcher's testimony. She claimed last week that they were written to keep the girl happy and guide her away to a more age-appropriate relationship.
'These emails are consistent with a relatively young teacher, in her early 30s, who had got herself in too deep … and so was trying to deal with the situation and extricate herself from it,' Mr Culshaw said.
Ms Fletcher holds a PhD in music education.
She told the court that she was heterosexual and believed in the Catholic faith.
She was still legally married to a man, though the pair had separated, she told the court.
The judge-alone trial continues.
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