admitted child molester, Crown counsel Mr. Stephen Harrison said yesterday.

Mr. Harrison said Solicitor General Mr. Barrie Meade had instructed him to file an application for leave to appeal the sentence given Andrea Tucker in Supreme Court on Monday.

The application will be filed this week, he told The Royal Gazette . Tucker, 36, was placed on probation for three years and told to continue taking counselling after she admitted sexually molesting a boy she babysat between his sixth and 12th birthdays.

The molestation by the Spanish Point woman included kissing, fondling, oral sex and intercourse, the court was told.

Controversy over the sentence was heightened because Tucker's lawyer Miss Patricia Harvey told Puisne Judge the Hon. Mr. Justice Ward that the nursery school which formerly employed her "would now like to have her back''.

Since then, the school has said it wrote a character reference for Tucker, but had no plans to rehire her.

The offences did not occur at the nursery school.

For the second straight day, Miss Harvey did not return telephone calls from The Royal Gazette yesterday.

As well as urging an appeal, Bermuda's Coalition for the Protection of Children has said laws should be changed to prevent convicted child molesters from working in nurseries and day cares.