Matua Kahurangi: If a man did this to an 11-year-old girl, he’d be locked up for years

This is absolutely sickening. A 35-year-old Auckland primary school teacher, Tamlyn Estee May, groomed an 11-year-old boy: sent him multiple nude and explicit photos of herself (”Don’t tell anyone, this is just for you”), told him they’d “make a good couple,” kissed him after wrestling, held his hand on “dates,” and spent the night sleeping in the same bed with him at his father’s house. She pleaded guilty to grooming for sexual conduct and indecency with a boy under 12 - offences that carry up to 3 and 10 years in prison.

What did she get? A pathetic 6 months of home detention. No jail. No sex offender register. Just cozy house arrest, credits for her “remorse,” guilty plea, and some sob story about childhood trauma making her “regress” to being an 11-year-old herself. The judge even let her dodge permanent name suppression partly because she was pregnant. Meanwhile, the boy’s parents are left hauling their traumatized son to counselling every week, describing an “unimaginable betrayal” that shattered his innocence and trust forever.

Imagine if the genders were reversed. A 35-year-old male teacher sending dick pics to an 11-year-old girl, coaxing her into “dating” him, kissing her, and sleeping in the same bed? He’d be rotting in prison for years - rightly so. The Crown would push hard for maximum sentences, the public would be baying for blood, and no judge would buy “trauma-bonding” or “low risk” excuses to keep him out of jail. Society treats male predators as monsters who deserve the full weight of the law. But when it’s a woman preying on a vulnerable little boy? Suddenly, it’s “understandable,” “not predatory,” and worthy of leniency.

This is a disgusting double standard that screams the system protects female offenders while throwing boys under the bus. The victim’s father called her actions “self-absorbed, manipulating, cold-hearted” and “stomach-churning abuse” with zero real remorse. He’s right. How dare the courts hand this predator a slap on the wrist and call it accountability? The message to other would-be groomers is clear: if you’re a woman, you might just get to walk free.

Matua Kahurangi is just a bloke sharing thoughts on New Zealand and the world beyond. No fluff, just honest takes. He blogs on https://matuakahurangi.com/ where this article was sourced.