WARNING: This story contains disturbing descriptions of child sex abuse. Resources and supports for anyone who has experienced sexual violence can be found at the bottom of this story.

A woman who worked as a guidance counsellor at a Prince Edward Island middle school until she was charged has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a “high needs” student she used to counsel.

Bethany Toombs, 42, had pleaded not guilty to three charges last year. But on Wednesday, Toombs appeared in P.E.I. Supreme Court in Charlottetown alongside her lawyer and changed one of her pleas to guilty. 

She pleaded guilty to a sexual interference charge, which is the sexual touching of a young person under the age of 16 who cannot consent to any sexual contact with an adult under Canadian law. 

The Crown stayed two other charges against Toombs: sexual assault and invitation to sexual touching.

Saw each other outside of school

CBC News is withholding some details and circumstances about the crime in order to protect the identity of the victim.

According to an agreed statement of facts filed in court, the male victim was a student at East Wiltshire Intermediate School, a middle school that includes grades 7 to 9, while Toombs worked there as a counsellor on the student services team. 

The document characterizes the student as someone with “high needs” and a “difficult family background” who was struggling both academically and socially. 

After a meeting with a parent and conversations with school administration about the student’s absences, Toombs began meeting with the student in one-on-one sessions each week, including during private counselling sessions. 

“Toombs would regularly attend the victim’s family home to personally take him to school when he failed to attend,” Crown prosecutor Chris White told the court Wednesday.

While their official counselling relationship had ended, this contact outside of school between Toombs and the young person continued.

“Toombs began to engage him in acts of sexual intercourse,” White said. “Over the course of the summer, the sexual encounters continued and occurred on multiple occasions per week.”

The agreed statement of facts signed by Toombs also indicates she provided her teenage victim with alcohol and cannabis and that they often consumed the substances together. Toombs was  originally charged with providing a minor with cannabis, but that charge was later stayed.

Both took concerns to RCMP

Towards the end of that summer, Toombs and the victim got into an argument that resulted in him pushing and punching her. 

He then punched her again weeks later. This time, Toombs and the victim went to the emergency room together due to bruising and a cut on her face. She was advised it was likely a 10-hour wait, and so they left. 

The fallout between the two escalated, and the next day both Toombs and the victim independently went to the RCMP to report their respective allegations: the victim’s punching of Toombs, and Toombs’s sexual abuse of the youth.

Court documents showed the victim was charged with assaulting Toombs, but the matter was resolved through extrajudicial sanctions.

Toombs originally told police there was no sexual contact between the two, and that the victim had told her he would “make” allegations that she sexually abused him if she reported the physical assaults he committed. 

Toombs was arrested two weeks later on Sept. 24, 2024.

“During that interview, [Toombs] admitted that sexual contact had occurred between herself and the victim,” the agreed statement of facts reads.

“But [Toombs] alleged that each encounter had been coerced by the victim through threats and violence.”

In court recording heard by CBC News on Thursday, Toombs can be heard answering the chief justice’s plea inquiry with a “yes” to all questions, including that she was pleading guilty to sexually touching the victim of her own free will.

She also said she understood that it was the prosecution’s job to prove the charges laid against her and that she was giving up her right to a trial by entering her plea voluntarily. 

The charge documents specified the touching took place with Toombs’s “hands, mouth and vagina,” the courtroom heard.

The case will be back in court for sentencing in May.

The Department of Education and Early Years had previously told CBC News that Toombs’s teaching license was suspended while the allegations were before the courts.

CBC News has reached out to the department and the Public Schools Branch for comment, but did not hear back by deadline.

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