"Goodnight gorgeous. Sleep well. Don't be sorry.
You need sleep. It's been a busy day. Thank you for today's events.
Hugs kisses." This was a message primary school teacher Erin Jarmey sent to a pre-teen girl with whom she developed an inappropriate relationship over an estimated nine-month period. The 39-year-old pleaded guilty and was yesterday sentenced on a representative charge of an indecent act with a child - behaviour her lawyer described as a "horrific mistake" and a "tragedy of Shakespearean proportions".
The indecent acts covered by the charge related to hugging and kissing, described by witnesses as the pair "touching and caressing each other's bodies" and a "lover's cuddle". According to the summary of facts, one of the kissing episodes lasted for several minutes. The kissing most frequently happened when Jarmey picked up or dropped the girl off.
The neighbours who saw it initially didn't realise it was the pre-teen girl, mistaking her for an older girl. Jarmey was a senior teacher at a Rotorua primary school and first met the victim through her role there. But she was never the child's teacher and the offending didn't happen when the girl was a student at the school.
Terms of endearment What may have started as an innocent friendship between the teacher and the girl turned into something more after the contact between the pair increased. Jarmey had befriended the young girl's family and offered to pick her up and take her to extra-curricular activities. The pair.