Posted on 01/11/2009 3:40:12 AM PST by billorites
Neighbors of a suburban schoolteacher who is accused of seducing a 13-year-old boy are still reeling from the shocking allegations lodged against the “clean-cut” woman who appeared to be dedicated to her husband and her job.
“When you talk to her, she is quiet, really nice,” said Erica Mara, 20, who lives across the street from Christine McCallum, 29, who was charged Friday with seven counts of statutory rape.
No one answered the door at McCallum’s home on Central Street in Rockland yesterday.
Mara questioned how McCallum, a teacher at an Abington elementary school, would find time to have an affair. She was rarely seen without her husband, Scott.
“They seem like they got along really good,” Mara said. “Every time I saw them they were in the garden or in the back yard.”
Added Mara’s stepmother, Jaime Mara, 30: “They were always doing something together.”
Police say McCallum befriended the boy in 2005 or early 2006 when he was 13 and she tutored his younger brother. She took the boys under her wing, let them stay at her home, bought them food and gave them rides, police say.
Within months McCallum and the boy, now 16, were having sex on an almost daily basis, police allege. The boy told police he had sex with McCallum more than 300 times at his Abington home and McCallum’s Central Street and Arlington Street homes in Rockland, according to a police report.
The affair ended in November 2007, but it was only recently reported to police when the boy’s father found out, police say.
“I’m kind of blown away,” said Mark Burns, 38, who lives across from the Arlington Street home where the McCallums once lived. “I would have never expected it. They seemed like a clean-cut family.” He saw McCallum and the boy often. She watched him skateboard sometimes, Burns said, adding, “He was always around.”
“They were nice people,” said another Arlington Street neighbor who knew the couple well and didn’t want to be identified. “It’s too sensitive for me to comment.”
McCallum denies the charges. Her attorney says she was a surrogate mother because the boy’s father, a single dad, needed help.
A man named Mike, who lived next to the boys and their father on Winthrop Street in Abington, said he’s not shocked. He said McCallum went beyond the role of teacher, even inviting the boys over for sleepovers. “People aren’t that kind,” said Mike, who wouldn’t give his last name.
McCallum was fired Thursday from her job at the Woodsdale School in Abington. She posted $1,000 bail Friday and was released on condition she submit to GPS monitoring and stay away from the boy and anyone under age 16.
Well, that's true, they are no longer in business anymore. At least not in Texas
In Canada eh
Really? I'm sort of shocked
We live in a "kid centric" society. Kids are always right and adults are always wrong. Don't believe me, just turn on the TV.
I suppose this type of behavior is considered “normal” by their “Standards”.
Actually, 14 years is not that uncommon an age of consent around the world and may even apply in some U.S. states.
The crucial element, at least in Canada and probably other jurisdictions as well, is that the perpetrator, ...er, I mean older "friend," not have any undue power or influence over the younger. Thus, a guardian, teacher, counselor, supervisor, etc. would still be considered as performing a crime. A total stranger of the same age met on the street, perhaps not.
Age of consent = 14 in Canada well it did my mistake.
Originally:
The Criminal Code does not now criminalize consensual sexual activity with or between persons 14 or over, unless it takes place in a relationship of trust or dependency, in which case sexual activity with persons over 14 but under 18 can constitute an offence, notwithstanding their consent. Even consensual activity with those under 14 but over 12 may not be an offence if the accused is under 16 and less than two years older than the complainant. The exception, of course, is anal intercourse, to which unmarried persons under 18 cannot legally consent, although both the Ontario Court of Appeal(3) and the Quebec Court of Appeal(4) have struck down the relevant section of the Criminal Code.
But....I’m mistaken:
It is now illegal for adults in Canada to have sex with a partner under the age of 16, one of the new provisions of the Tories’ violent crime law that came into effect on Thursday.
The Tackling Violent Crime Act raises the legal age of sexual consent in Canada to 16 from 14, the first time it has been raised since 1892.
Yay Harper!
But do you notice that the original law states that:
The exception, of course, is anal intercourse, to which unmarried persons under 18 cannot legally consent
Like it’s a no-brainer....take that rainbow coalition LOL
Huh?! You must have a "naughty bookworm" fetish. :)
as a matter of fact, no...and knowing the judges around
here...(wonder if any kids who are “emancipated” from
their parents have done just that)
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