Closing arguments heard in trial for Regina teacher accused of relationship with student

Former Regina high school teacher, Jeffrey Dumba was back in court on Monday morning.

Dumba is facing five counts of child exploitation due to an alleged relationship between him and a student attending the school he was employed at. The former teacher pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Closing arguments were made in the courtroom, with both sides reiterating many of the details previously established in court.

Dumba was active on he social media platform, Snapchat. Which is where he began communicating with a 15-year-old student, which eventually led to sexual images and messages being exchanged between the two.

The argument lies in whether Dumba was aware of the girl's age throughout the time that the two were corresponding. The alleged victim claims that she made her age aware to the 49-year-old man early on in their communications. Dumba alleged that the student told him she was a 20-year-old university student.

The defence argued that the 15-year-old 'sought out' the 49 year old teacher.

The alleged victim had two different Snapchat accounts and usernames, with the later one being her first and last name. Dumba's username was different from his first and last, which he claimed was to make it difficult for students to find him on social media.

Closing arguments went on to expressed that the defence believes the alleged victim was lying about not knowing who the teacher was prior to communicating on Snapchat, describing the alleged victim as 'a very convincing liar'.

"She portrayed herself as a victim after the fact, but that's not what's going on....I think its pretty clear that she felt good about what she had done and was sort of bragging about this sort of relationship she had with Mr. Dumba." the defence said.

The crown argued that Dumba did not take reasonable steps to ensure the age of the alleged victim.

"She's not concealing her identity from him if she's interacting with him on Snapchat using the username [first and last name of the alleged victim] and if she's sending him pictures that include pictures of her face.... he knows that people lie about their age on social media, because he lied about his age on social media."

The judge will be taking some time to consider the matter, before returning with a decision on Nov. 26th.