A Florida schoolteacher who admitted sleeping with her 14-year-old pupil will escape punishment after a judge rejected a plea deal that would have given her 10 years of house arrest and probation.

The state attorney Richard Ridgway dropped molestation charges against Debra Lafave after a Marion county superior court judge refused to accept a deal that would have removed the need for the boy to give evidence.

"The court may be willing to risk the well-being of the victims of this case in order to force it to trial," Ridgway said. "I am not."

His decision to allow Lafave, to walk free from court in Tampa was condemned by child support groups, who accused Ridgway's office of double standards: a male schoolteacher in Orlando was jailed for five years for consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl this month.

"Florida prosecutors are giving permission to female child molesters ... that they can molest underage boys with impunity," said the Reverend Jesse Lee Paterson, the founder of the Brotherhood Organisation of a New Destiny, a Los Angeles-based faith group that operates a care home and after-school programmes for teenage boys.

"We've spent more than 30 years trying to ensure that girls are protected in this society. It's time we started looking out for our boys. Judges are far too lenient in their sentencing and prosecutors are too weak in seeking justice."

The boy's mother called the police in June 2004 after her son admitted sleeping with his teacher. Lafave, 23, who was married at the time, admitted having sex with the boy on three occasions once at her home, once in a classroom at Tampa's Greco middle school and once in the back of her 4x4 vehicle while the pupil's cousin was driving.

She was charged with three counts of lewd and lascivious conduct, and, in November 2005, a court in neighbouring Hillsborough county, where two of the offences took place, accepted an identical plea bargain that will also require her to register as a sex offender.

The salacious details of the case and Lafave's background as a part-time model created worldwide media interest, a factor cited by Ridgway in his decision to drop the Marion county proceedings and spare the boy the ordeal of testifying.

He said the boy, who, according to reports, initially boasted to his friends about his conquests, had become traumatized by the publicity and the prospect of a televized hearing.

At a news conference after yesterday's hearing, Lafave's lawyer, John Fitzgibbons, said: "This time the case is over for good. Our only hope now is that Debra will basically fade to a footnote in everyone's memory."

Lafave appeared contrite as she apologized for her conduct. "The past two years have been hard on all parties involved," she said. She criticized the media for "invading the boy's privacy" and failing to mention her own bipolar disorder.

Source: China Daily