Quebec teacher given four-year sentence for sexual abuse of elementary-school students

(File photo)

A teacher in the Lanaudiere region, northwest of Montreal, faces nearly four years in prison for sexually abusing his young students.

Marc-Olivier Perreault, 30, pleaded guilty to nine counts of sexual interference with minors, one count of possession of child pornography and another of accessing child pornography, according to a spokesperson for the Quebec Crown prosecutors' office.

Perreault was not only given a sentence of 47 months in prison, but will be added to the sex offender registry for life, said Audrey Roy-Cloutier.

According to Le Journal, Perreault taught grades 2 and 3 at a school that isn't being named in order to protect the victims' privacy.

Other staff at the school flagged his troubling behaviour, the paper reported, including rubbing little girls' feet when they came in from the cold, having them sit on his lap, and caressing their thighs and near their genital areas.

The events happened in 2019, and Perreault pleaded guilty last July, and his sentence was a joint recommendation of the Crown and defence lawyer.

The girls' parents said they're deeply damaged by the experience, with one family describing how their child refuses to sleep alone at night, feels sick in the presence of authority figures, and makes sexual comments inappropriate for an eight-year-old.

When police arrested Perreault and searched his home in 2019, they found a huge file of child pornography on his computer, Le Journal reported.