black flats topped with bows, jeans and a green T-shirt — sits still and nervous, looking as if she wants to disappear but holding her mother’s hand.

Her attacker, Cole Gilbert, sits a few rows ahead, his legs splayed and an arm resting along top of the courtroom bench. His fingers drum the syncopated beat of a song coming through his earbuds.

Loose. Confident. Charged with sexually assaulting Shaila, he is about to plead guilty and make a deal with the prosecution.

Judge Brian Scully walks in and the plea hearing begins.

This is what happened to Shaila Gray:

Cole told her to follow him out of the school lunchroom if she wanted her iPod back. The 17-year-old led her down the hall, into the boys’ washroom.

Bold, like he has done this before,something she did not like. She showed no remorse. Yet still, the court is handling her with kid gloves. Though she was found guilty in June, it will not be until February 2012 that she will be sentenced — more than two years after the crime. The reason, the Star was told: Monique is stuck on a waiting list for daycare and until she finds someone to look after her child during the day will not be able to participate in rehabilitative counselling and other programming the court may order her to attend.

Since the night of her arrest, when she was held in a cell awaiting her bail hearing, Monique has not spent a day in jail for her crime.

The stiffest sentence the Star observed was handed down