ST-JEROME, QC - A young man told a court that he had sex with his married high school gym teacher hundreds of times in her office as well as in her master bedroom.

The man, now a 25-year-old university student, was 15 when Tania Pontbriand is alleged to have first courted him.
The witness said he was "clearly her favorite student" even before Pontbriand first kissed him on a camping trip in May 2002.

He said the former teacher, now 41, would purposely sit near his desk at Rosemere High School north of Montreal.

"She told me she loved to be near me," the complainant said under cross-examination.

"I saw her yelling at other students when she wasn't happy and I can tell you that I was never punished as much as the others."

Pontbriand is accused of sexual assault and sexual contact with a minor from 2002 to 2004.

The student testified that his teacher would find multiple opportunities to have sex with him.

"We often made love in her office at school, after class," he said. "In a hallway, near the shower."

They also met for trysts in the woman's home northeast of Montreal, where he said she lied to her husband about a bra on the couch and a bottle of lubricant on a desk.
But the lies eventually caught up with them when Pontbriand's husband caught the two of them in his bed.

"He left and slammed the door," the student said. "Mrs. Pontbriand (still) insisted that we make love in their bed in the master bedroom. It made me feel uncomfortable. I felt guilty."

She abruptly broke up with him in 2004 and he kept their affair secret until he told his mother in 2007.

The mother complained to the school and to police, prompting Pontbriand to suggest he lie about his mother's motives.

"Mrs. Pontbriand encouraged me to say (mom) was crazy and an alcoholic," the man testified. "That was totally false."

He says he initially thought the affair was "beyond my wildest dreams" but that it eventually divided his family and left him "confused, ashamed and anxious."

Pontbriand has denied the allegations under oath and has since left the teaching profession.