Port Hope Grade 8 teacher facing sexual assault, related charges
A Grade 8 teacher employed at a Catholic school in Port Hope, Ont., is facing 18 charges for sex-related offences she allegedly committed against current and former students, police say.
The Port Hope Police Service said this week the 40-year-old teacher at St. Anthony Catholic Elementary School was first arrested in late August after an investigation into an alleged sexual assault involving a youth victim who was a current student at the school.
Kelly-Anne Jennings was initially charged with sexual assault and sexual interference in connection with that incident, police said in a news release Tuesday. Jennings is a certified teacher with the Ontario College of Teachers.
Insp. Katie Andrews, of the Port Hope Police Service, said in an interview from Cobourg that the first alleged victim told his mother that there was allegedly touching with a teacher on a class trip. The mother told police during the week of Aug. 21.
The Ontario Provincial Police investigated first because the class trip was outside of Port Hope, but Port Hope police later took over the investigation.
Andrews said the investigation widened after that. Investigators started to interview witnesses whose names were given as part of the original statement. Students and teachers were interviewed, she added. Other alleged victims came forward.
Further investigation identified three additional alleged victims who were previously students at the same school, according to police.
With assistance from Peterborough police's technological crimes unit, police in Port Hope carried out several search warrants related to the ongoing investigation, and as a result, Jennings was re-arrested on Sept. 4.
She was charged with 16 additional offences, including:
Three counts of distributing sexually explicit material to a person under 16 years old.
Seven counts of luring a person under 16 by means of telecommunication.
Two counts of accessing child pornography.
Two counts of invitation to sexual touching to a person under 16 years old.
Two counts of making, printing, publishing or possessing child pornography for the purpose of publication.
The charges have not yet been tested in court.
Jennings was held for a bail hearing at the Ontario Court of Justice in Cobourg on Thursday.
She was released with surety and with several conditions, including no contact with 14 individuals, not possessing a cell phone, pager or personal digital assistant, and not being allowed to be in the company of or communicate with males or females under 16 years of age unless a surety is present or unless the children are her biological children.
She is expected to appear in court in October.
Police urged anyone who believes they were a victim of the teacher, or anyone with information that could help investigators, to come forward.
Andrews said the entire situation is difficult.
"It's so sad. It's sad for Kelly-Anne Jennings's family, I'm sure. It's sad for the community. It's sad for the victims. It's sad for the other kids starting school," she said. "It's September. It's a new year. And of course, they had to go back to this news."
'Distressing and upsetting' for students and families
Steven O'Sullivan, director of education at the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board, said Friday the teacher had been employed at the school since 2016.
After her initial arrest, the teacher was immediately put on administrative leave and prohibited from visiting board properties or interacting with students, O'Sullivan told CBC Radio's Ontario Morning.
The board helped to facilitate police interviews with key witnesses and possible victims, he said.
O'Sullivan said the board is now focused on offering any necessary supports to students and communicating openly with families. There are social work, community and online supports and pastoral care, he said.
"It is certainly distressing and upsetting, for our students and for our parents," he said.
"We really want to reassure our parents that safety and wellbeing of our students is always our top priority."
O'Sullivan declined to discuss the teacher's history citing the board's policy of confidentiality for personnel matters, but he did say Jennings was hired via the board's established human resources processes.
