Sébastien McDuff pleaded guilty Tuesday to sexually exploiting a minor in the mid-2000s. The victim burst into tears as his former teacher, impassive in the courtroom, admitted the charges.
The man appeared at the courthouse with his face covered by a surgical mask, sunglasses on his nose and a cap on his head. He removed them before entering the room where, answering affirmatively to his lawyer’s questions, he admitted his guilt.
The case began around twenty years ago when the accused, then aged 27, obtained a position as a physical education teacher in a high school in the east of Montreal, in September 2003. The victim, in third secondary, is one of her students.
In May 2004, while the two were alone in a gym storage room, they kissed. The following winter, the victim joined her teacher on her own in an arena. That evening, they drink beer, talk, and have their first full sexual encounter. According to Mr. McDuff’s statement of facts, he “penetrated the victim […] without a condom.”
History repeated itself on March 7, 2005, when the victim joined Mr. McDuff, now 48 years old, in the same arena in the east of the city. They have sex again. During the following year, the accused and the victim saw each other a few times, notably in the accused’s vehicle, where they had sexual contact.
Their last full relationship occurred on June 28 of that same year, when the victim was 16 years old. Over the course of the following school year, when she was in fifth grade, their contact was “less frequent” due to Mr. McDuff taking a leave of absence. On a few occasions, they still had sexual contact in the accused’s vehicle.
The victim “agreed” with the accused’s actions at the time they occurred. However, the statement of facts specifies, she could not legally consent to this due to the link of authority which united them.
If the sexual relations end from that moment, the contact between the victim and the accused does not cease immediately. “For several years,” they kept in touch. It was at the age of 26 that the victim first reproached the accused for the actions he had committed.
She then makes him read a letter she wrote. The accused burst into tears and apologized, according to the account of the facts presented to judge Suzanne Costom by prosecutor Karine Lagacé-Paquette. On two occasions in 2020, the victim recorded the accused without his knowledge during telephone conversations. She goes over the events again, and Mr. McDuff apologizes again.
Until his indictment in January 2023, the accused taught at Jean-Grou secondary school in Rivière-des-Prairies. The events, however, did not take place in this school, but in another school in the east of Montreal that cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim. Mr. McDuff has not taught since.
Through a spokesperson, the Pointe-de-l’Île school service center, where the Jean-Grou school is located, said at the time that it had learned “with dismay” of the filing of criminal charges against one of his teachers.
The accused, who will be registered on the sex offender register, is represented by lawyer Jean-Sébastien St-Amand Guinois.
