When a Melbourne couple set off on a holiday in December 1984, they left their 14-year-old son in the care of a teacher they thought they could trust.
Three decades on, Kathryn Joy Woods is facing jail after a jury found her guilty of indecently assaulting the boy.
Now 59, she was then 24 and had just moved into the boy's family home while his parents travelled overseas from Christmas through to January.
Last month, a jury found her guilty of one charge each of indecent assault and gross indecency with a person under 16 over a sex act with the boy in the hallway of his family home.
At a County Court plea hearing on Wednesday, Judge Douglas Trapnell said it wouldn't be an easy sentencing task.
Woods was acquitted on one charge of sexual penetration of a child aged 10 to 16, five charges of gross indecency and six of indecent assault.
The boy's family was in court and in a victim impact statement read by his sister, said they wanted to "put this evil behind us".
She said she had coaxed her brother back from the brink of doing something tragic and held her elderly father through his confusion about how he could not have known.
Prosecutor Gary Hevey said Woods had used her good character to invade the family.
But Woods' lawyer, Colin Mandy, said though inappropriate, there had been genuine love and respect between the boy and Woods.
He said she faced hardship since her arrest in Brisbane in January 2017, including being unable to return to Hong Kong where she lived and worked as an education consultant.
He said she was facing justice for this act after 35 years and at the end of a long career, for which she had little left to show.
Mr Hevey asked for immediate jail, while Mr Mandy said any sentence should be wholly suspended.
Judge Trapnell ordered she be assessed for a community corrections order, against Mr Mandy's wishes because Woods wants to put the matter behind her quickly and return overseas.
She was bailed pending sentencing at a later date.
Australian Associated Press
