Catholic school teacher Sylvia Zoleta is accused of sexually abusing a former student in her Grade 5 music class.

TORONTO - From behind the safety of a courtroom screen, he sat in the witness box and hesitantly described how his Catholic school teacher Sylvia Zoleta sexually abused him when he was just a young boy in her Grade 5 music class.

But at least from behind the screen, he didn’t have to face her.

He may be 18 now, his identity protected by a publication ban, but his painful testimony took him back to when he was approaching his 10th birthday and was given one of his many detentions to stay after school. He told the judge-alone trial before Justice Robert Goldstein that Zoleta had promised to be his special friend — a grooming technique often used by predators.

She then locked the music room door, he said, and sexually assaulted him, attacks she repeated about seven more times over the next six weeks until the boy told her he didn’t want to be alone with her anymore.