Delurking here so firstly hello :-) and while in no way supporting this man who sounds like an immature mess, I don't think it's completely black and white. A lot of it went on at my school in the late 90s, including an affair of my own. Some of the teachers were sleazy predatory scumbags, one in particular, the PE teacher, had a string of "relationships" with girls in the sixth form who he would start pursuing as soon as they turned 16 and when I say "as soon as" I mean literally. I was friends with one of the girls and she said he told her he looked up her birthday in the school records so that he knew when he could legally ask her out (ew). I've lost touch with her but a few years after school we were reminiscing and she said she felt a bit sick thinking back on it.
In my own case though he was a lovely guy. He didn't pursue me, I pursued him. He was a chemistry supply teacher, quite young and being a bit geeky he wasn't very worldy or confident. In fact he was a bit shy and quite scared of us, like a lot of the less experienced teachers were! I fancied him and hung around his lab after lessons offering to help clear up the equipment. The more we talked the more we liked each other. He'd just moved to the area, hadn't made many friends yet, felt intimidated by both the pupils and the other teachers, and his Mum had just passed away, so despite our ages and his job I can honestly say I was the more confident one and he was the more vulnerable one. I'm sure he was flattered by me flirting with him but it wasn't just that, we got on really well and talked about all sorts. Ok I'm probably going to get slated for this but here goes, I enjoyed the sex too, I felt really comfortable being with him and I don't regret the relationship even now. Honestly I can't think how it did me any kind of damage, if anything I think it raised my self-respect and my standards of what I expected from relationships in general from then on.
Of course the difference is he was not a 44-year-old married man who took my virginity in a cupboard, which all sounds pretty sordid. But still, and like I said without condoning Kerner, isn't it reasonable for the judge to take his mental state into account as well as the fact that he didn't initiate things? Not all situations are the same. Actually one of the other teachers at my school, also a nice guy, had a relationship with a girl in the year above me which we all knew about and started when she was about 15, carried on through GCSEs and sixth form, she went on to uni to become a doctor and as soon as she qualified they got married and now more than 10 years later they're still married, apparently very happily. It's not always clear cut.