Teacher guilty of indecent act on boy

A Melbourne high school teacher has been found guilty of committing an indecent act
on a child under 16 but has been cleared of a charge that she had sex with the
student.
Nazira Rafei, 26, sobbed as the verdict was delivered on Tuesday after prosecutors
had alleged she struck up a friendship with the 15-year-old boy outside school.
It was claimed the pair had sex, hugged and kissed.
The jury also found Rafei not guilty of a second charge of committing an indecent
act with a child under 16.
During the two-week trial in the Victorian County Court, jurors heard the pair first
met outside school during a teachers' strike on Valentine's Day last year.
The jury was told that later that month, during a second teachers' strike, the
married teacher went to the Year 10 student's house and they had sex in his bed.
It was during this encounter that the indecent act of hugging and kissing occurred.
Giving evidence, the boy claimed Rafei said to him: "Disrespect me, treat me like
I'm your sex slave".
He also alleged they rubbed genitals while clothed and kissed in the teacher's car,
during a separate rendezvous.
Cross-examining the student, who cannot be named, Rafei's lawyer Peter Morrissey
accused him of making up the sexual encounters.
He asked the boy whether he got phrases such as "Treat me like a sex slave" from a
pornographic movie.
But the teenager insisted he had sex with the teacher.
Prosecutors also claimed the pair had phone sex, a claim the defence denied.
Judge Liz Gaynor released Rafei on bail until a pre-sentence hearing on February 26.