It's strike three for a Surrey teacher who was sentenced to five months' house arrest for fondling a 13-year-old math student's breast.

Shawn Seong Su Yu, 43, was convicted in June 2006 of sexual touching that happened during class in a Surrey school. A publication ban protects the victim's identity.

Yu lost an appeal of his conviction last year and has now lost an appeal of his sentence.

The latest appeal was heard in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster. Yu petitioned the court to overturn part of the sentence that requires him to comply with a SOIRA order. Beside the house arrest and one year's probation, Surrey provincial court Judge Suzanne MacGregor had Yu's name entered into the federal sex offender database, in compliance with the Sex Offender Information Registration Act.

He was also prohibited from "seeking, obtaining, or continuing any employment or becoming a volunteer" in anything involving children under 14, for three years.

During sentencing, MacGregor said it "may appear unfair" to subject him to the SOIRA given he had no prior criminal record, low probability of re-offending and prospects for rehabilitation, but found that Yu hadn't established that such an order in his case would be "grossly disproportionate to the public interest."

Yu's counsel, Jeffrey Ray, argued that seeing as the judge used the term "unfair" in reference to his client's SOIRA order, it follows she should have granted him an exemption.

Crown prosecutor Vittorio Toselli argued that when MacGregor said "it may appear unfair" to hit Yu with a SOIRA order, she was merely suggesting it might appear inconvenient - somewhat of a "bureaucratic hiccup" - to Yu because he lives just across the border.

In the end, Justice Elizabeth Arnold-Bailey found MacGregor "made no error in law or in mixed fact and law," and dismissed Yu's appeal.