Former Teacher’s Misconduct Dates Back to 2005

Since finding out that her old teacher Jeff Peters had been arrested in 2019, an Ottawa woman says she’s gone over what happened between them many times in her head.

“I felt like I was his secret girlfriend,” said Elizabeth, formerly from Perth, Ont. “He always talked about our amazing chemistry.”

CBC has agreed to let Elizabeth use a pseudonym to keep her identity safe.

She realizes now that it wasn’t a genuine “relationship,” and understands that Peters was grooming her back in 2005 and 2006, during her last years of high school, for what would happen later.

Peters was recently found guilty of sex crimes against two other former students who attended St. John Catholic High School in Perth, located southwest of Ottawa, between 2013 and 2016. He received a sentence of three and a half years in prison on April 29.

In 2019, when Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) first revealed charges against Peters, Elizabeth, then in her 30s, approached the police and shared her experience with them.

She provided a statement and served as a witness; however, since her sexual encounters with Peters began after she turned 18 and graduated from high school, she felt “on the outside” of the recent criminal cases, Elizabeth told CBC.

No charges were filed concerning her case.

On April 29, a judge at the Perth courthouse found Peters guilty of sex crimes against two former students. (Julie Ireton/CBC)

Sexual crimes 

The agreed statement of fact from Peters’s criminal convictions was read into the record at the Perth courthouse and obtained by CBC; it includes information about two victims whose names are under a publication ban.

Both victims were students at St. John under Peters’s instruction.

One student reported that her interactions with Peters began with inappropriate remarks and hugs. This escalated to kissing, sexual touching followed by sexual intercourse several times while she was in Grade 12 in 2016. 

“It was usually on Thursdays he would play golf…. They would meet up, kiss; he would turn her around and have sex,” noted the court statement. “She sobbed all the way home.”

The second victim informed police that she thought Peters was her “boyfriend” and truly believed it only happened to her.

“They would exchange sexual messages via email at school…. When she was 17, he kept her after class; he pulled down her shirt and kissed her neck. They kissed,” according to court testimony.

Peters taught history and religion as well as coaching sports teams for several years at St. John Catholic High School in Perth, Ont. (Julie Ireton/CBC)

A decade prior

Elizabeth mentioned that her encounter with Peters occurred ten years before the two cases linked to his convictions surfaced.

Soon after graduating from St. John Catholic High School in 2006, she stated that Peters started an “off-and-on” sexual relationship which continued even during his marriage.

Looking back now, she feels that Peters had groomed her for years before she turned 18 while still being his student.

Even though no charges came from her story, Elizabeth commended how OPP investigators treated her-they listened attentively and provided access to counseling services for support.

“They were incredible,” she said. “I’m taking baby steps trying to accept it piece by piece.”

Peters will remain on the sexual offenders registry for twenty years and is prohibited from communicating with both victims along with two others individuals involved.

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