BEN HARVEY: Why convicted sex offender, Naomi Tekea Craig, might not spend as much time in jail as you think

Music teacher Naomi Tekea Craig briefly, and for a very disturbing reason, became a household name across Australia last week when news emerged that she was having a baby fathered by one of her 13-year-old students.

The 33-year-old from Mandurah, south of Perth, admitted raping the boy multiple times, including when he was 12.

I suspect that on hearing about the case more than a few men would have questioned whether this was a “real” crime.

After all, there aren’t many school boys who haven’t fantasised about a female teacher.

If you are moved to question the legitimacy of this court case, please buck up your ideas.

Twelve-year-old boys can’t be trusted to do the most basic things in life and the idea they can give informed consent is absurd.

Even if, in the moment, this kid didn’t think it was the worst thing to happen to him, he will bear the mental scars for the rest of his life. Imagine having an adult son when you yourself are barely 30?

He might not understand it now, but his childhood evaporated when Craig took advantage of him.

If after reading that you are still smirking a little, let me give it to you bluntly: how would you feel if a 33-year-old man was charged with having sex with a 12-year-old girl?

No-brainer, right?

That pervert would have the book thrown at him by the judge hearing the case and would spend his time in custody in a special protection unit, such is the violent loathing prisoners have for paedophiles.

Will Craig be treated with the same severity by the judiciary? Will she have to fear for her life in jail when inmates find out she raped a child under her care?

Is there the same level of societal outrage when the victim’s a boy and the perpetrator’s a woman?

Before we consider those questions, we need to appreciate that Naomi Craig is clearly mentally unstable.

She doesn’t just have sex with her pupil, she gets pregnant by him and then celebrates that crime by posing for a series of “glamour” maternity shots a few days before she’s charged with a raft of sexual penetration of a child offences

The person who took the shot took to social media to fete Craig as a “goddess” and a “Christina Aguilera doppelganger”.

The whole thing is demented but that photo shoot is something else.

Those unhinged pictures are relevant because they speak to Craig’s state of mind. And that state will have some bearing on her sentence.

As will the fact she pleaded guilty to all the charges.

As will the fact she is a new mum, having given birth to her student’s child on January 8.

Police confirmed the 13-year-old victim was in fact the baby’s father after they did a DNA test on the 33-year-old mother’s recently discharged placenta.

I apologise if that sentence was as hard to read as it was to type.

The judge is going to have to discount her sentence because of those factors and due to that it may make it look like she’s being treated differently to a male abuser.

So, what can she expect to serve? There aren’t enough cases of female teachers raping students to work out whether there is a gender bias in sentencing.

Melbourne teacher Malka Leifer got 15 years for sexually abusing two school kids but that was a weird situation because she had fled to Israel and was the subject of a decade-long extradition fight.

Other more “normal” cases suggest paedophile teachers don’t go to jail for anywhere near as long as we might think is appropriate.

Nicholas Visser, 32, originally got just four-and-a-half years for abusing a 15-year-old student over a period of close to nine months.

Astonishingly, he would have been eligible for parole in barely two years had prosecutors not appealed.

In 2012, a teacher known only as “YJ” because his name was suppressed was sentenced to five years for indecently dealing with five students. One year per kid. Really?

Dennis McKenna was considered one of Australia’s most prolific paedophiles.

As a teacher at St Andrew’s Hostel in Katanning he committed hundreds of offences against male students yet his last stretch was only nine years and he could be back in society in a few months.

McKenna’s brother Neil was given six years for raping a 15-year-old at the same hostel.

In 2001 teacher Darrell Vivian Ray got less than four years despite being guilty of 27 counts of indecently assaulting 18 male students at Melbourne primary schools.

The minimum time to be served by Ray was just 17 months.

Shocked? Get this. Victoria teacher Nick O’Shea served no time despite admitting he sexually assaulted a heap of boys over more than a decade.

Not one day in jail.

Don’t be surprised if Naomi Craig’s out posting cringey social media pics sooner than you think.