PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Associated Press]- A Woonsocket mother and her boyfriend were sentenced to three years probation on Monday for having intercourse in front of the woman’s 9-year-old daughter to teach the girl about sex.

Chief Family Court Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah Jr. sentenced Rebecca Arnold of Woonsocket, and her boyfriend, David Prata, to probation and a three-year suspended sentence after they pleaded no contest to a felony child neglect charge.

The judge said he wanted to spare the young girl, now 11, from testifying, according to Michael Healey, a spokesman for Attorney General Patrick Lynch.

During an investigation by the state child welfare authorities, Prata, 33, said he and Arnold, 36, had sex “all the time” in front of the child and that “we don’t believe in hiding anything.” He told an investigator that they did not force the girl to watch.

The allegations surfaced in December 2004 after the girl went to live with her father in North Adams, Massachusetts, after spending the summer with her mother in Woonsocket.

A teacher called a child abuse hotline to report that the girl said her mother and her boyfriend had sex in front of her. Woonsocket police arrested the couple February 2005.