Substitute teacher Shaul Shamai was jailed for seven years by the Tel Aviv District Court on Monday for indecently assaulting several 7- and 8-year-old girls and one 13-year-old girl.
Following a plea bargain, he also received an 18-month suspended jail sentence and was ordered to pay NIS 25,000 ($7,000) in compensation to each of his victims.
The judge castigated Shamai for failing to report his previous conviction for s3xual offenses to the school where he was employed.
The prosecution had sought a sentence of 10-18 years, but welcomed the final decision.
“This punishment reflects the seriousness of the offenses and will act as a deterrent to everybody who is responsible for the safety and security of children,” it said in a statement.
Shamai, 49, from Rishon Lezion, near Tel Aviv, was employed as a substitute teacher by a northern Tel Aviv elementary school from October 2016 until his arrest in June 2017.
As stated by the indictment, Shamai committed a series of s3xual offenses against four 7- and 8-year-old girls in front of the rest of the class when they would come to him for help during lessons. He would sit the girls on his lap and put his hands under their clothes and touch them inappropriately, sometimes despite their verbal or physical resistance.
During the investigation it emerged that the principal, an educational adviser and another pupil warned Shamai several times about his inappropriate physical contact with the students. He was barred from speaking with the pupils during break and told not to have any physical contact with them.
During one confrontation between Shamai and the principal, he stated that she had permitted him to hug the students — a claim she denied.
Shamai initially denied all the charges, saying he showed a warm, loving, fatherly attitude to the pupils but did not harm them.
Shamai was also charged with s3xual offenses against a 13-year-old girl he tutored privately from July 2014 until September 2016 in her home in Rishon Lezion. He would allegedly put his hand under her shirt and tell her to relax. One time he licked her lips and unsuccessfully tried to force his tongue into her mouth. Immediately afterward the girl phoned her mother, crying, and the mother confronted Shamai, who denied doing anything.
Shamai returned to the house and pleaded with the girl not to tell anyone because “if she told she would ruin his career,” the court heard.
He was hired by the school despite being banned from teaching by the Education Department after earlier complaints against him. In February 2017, the department discovered that he was teaching despite losing his license, but no action was taken against him at that time.