Too feel devastated for the wife of the teacher who has run off to France with his 15 year old pupil?

[chipsandmushypeas]

What on earth went through his head when he decided to do this?! The poor woman has taken all her social networks down out of humiliation I presume. link

Crazy.

Casting aspersions about her mother's relationships - which, over a 15 year period hardly come across as suitable to feature on the Jeremy Kyle Show - is precisely the sort of red herring that diverts the case away from what really matters. Getting Megan Stammers found and brought back to her family safely.

I would say it has been handled badly too. If there had not been the massive media coverage of it, there is more chance that she may have contacted her parents by now, even if it was just to let them know that she is ok. But due to the scale of this in the british press, she is more likely to not do that, as she will be worried that it will lead to her being found. She hasnt been kidnapped, she willingly left with him, because she wants to be with him.

The press conference due this afternoon is expected to clarify what steps the authorities (including the French) are taking.

Interpol is simply a way for the police to co-operate internationally, and as it's not known for sure if they remain in France, it is a way to alert more countries to be on the look out for the car or the people. There have been no confirmed sightings, so the last positive location was when the ferry landed at Calais nearly a week ago.

Thanks meditrina.

I wonder how well palnned this was - initially when I heard it, I would have assumed they had been planning it proeprly for a while but now that Ive heard he was told about impending suspension and it seems liek a reaction to that it makes me think that this was all sort of last minute and a knee jerk reaction. Which makes it more likely hopefully they will be found sooner rather than later.

I don't think there's anything weird or unusual about wondering what leads up to this sort of situation, and to say that normally in these cases, as with the case of Merry's friend up thread, there are triggers, circumstances, which make the victim more vulnerable. What's wrong with acknowledging that? And yes, I've no doubt Megan thinks she'll be happier with him, however deluded that might be, or why would she be with him?

I agree with Maryz that he is definitely a villain and I would call him a perv too. I don't think that many of us, at the age of 30, would have even thought of a relationship with a 15 year old.

There was a safeguarding person talking about this on the BBC last night, he was concerned that independent schools, faith schools and academies might be somewhat more susceptible to this kind of situation because they don't necessarily adhere to the strict safeguarding policies that state schools now have in place. His point was that concerns regarding the relationship had been raised as early as last spring and that in a different school action (ie suspension of the teacher and a police investigation) would have been taken much quicker.

"If this was my daughter I'd be quite angry at the way it has been handled."

Meh, the family have been doing press conferences to hundreds of reporters, it's something they appear to want.

The problem does appear to be her age. She is betwixt and between. If she were 11, it would just be child abduction. If she were 18, about to do her A Levels, it would be entirely up to her.

But at 15 in this country it's a serious criminal matter, but in France it's perfectly acceptable.

Had she just turned 16, even, she might have gone away, parents knew she had gone, no names, no pack drill, no media, no police, just wait for her to call up from France, reassure her that she's loved and can come home to complete her studies whenever she was ready, and the police can deal with him as appropriate in due course.

The way it has been handled, however, as a mega-international-manhunt has obviously been misjudged, because as soon as they drove off the ferry in France, they were untouchable, so in fact there was no difference between how you would have handled an 18-year-old, about to do her A Level exams, doing the same, i.e. a PRIVATE phone call, 'Ok darling, we're here when you need us, come home soon.', and how they should have handled this.

He has been all over the media almost as international sex criminal #1, with an absolute avalanche of publicity, her face, life story, family background in every newspaper, the sort of publicity you'd expect if she'd been taken by an Ian Huntley type. All of which makes it extremely difficult for either party to return, and while the teacher has abused his position and certainly deserves to have his career ended, she on the other hand deserves to be able to go quietly back to school and finish her education. Unfortunately the prospects of that are very substantially diminished by the international manhunt charade that has been enacted so publicly.

Had they been in hiding in the UK, they would have been caught by now, her back at school, him arrested, suspended from his work.

But as they were known from the beginning to have gone to France, the judgement seems questionable.

I wonder what the law is in France is when children have affairs with their pupils.
Surely they don't just turn a blind eye to it.

If it was my daughter I wouldn't have wanted such a manhunt aspect to the episode. I would have tried to diminish the press furore as well although the tabloids love a good teacher pupil scandal. The mother seems to be less involved in the media furore than the exstepfather though.
The more this couple are hunted the more they will try to escape and if he is unstable the more likely he is to do something stupid.
I would be posting stuff on the social media sites I know my daughter uses but wanting the police to downplay the manhunt aspect and press conferences and just have a quiet hunt going on in the background.
I think our free press can really damage investigations like this and do harm.

"Surely they don't just turn a blind eye to it."

Why not?

They used to turn a blind eye in the UK. The UK law dates only from 2003.

I would imagine in most countries, if you are of legal age, which in France she is, that's the end of it.

Skippy - yy to that. I think it's such a thorny issue and all agencies involved will be trying to cover their backsides. The press are obviously doing a heroic job raking through every personal detail publicising this missing persons inquiry. But now it has escalated do much, they really are Bonnie and Clyde and their instinct will be to run further.

But even if she had just turned 16 would you really expect her family to react so calmly to the situation? If I was the mother of a 16 yr old in Megan's situation I'd be terrified. About the man's mental state. About whether she was pregnant. About what she was doing for food, clothes and money. About what state she was in psychologically/emotionally. About whether she was trying to get in touch and wasn't able to or he wasn't letting her. Loads of stuff. I don't think you could help but worry about worst case scenarios.

People of all ages go missing all the time and whether they're 16 or 46 their families are always distraught and always trying to get the details out there to make sure they are OK.

" I would have tried to diminish the press furore as well although the tabloids love a good teacher pupil scandal. "

Yes they do don't they. The stories of female teachers with boys are popular because it's quite salacious and the attitude is often 'well they both enjoyed it'.

"The mother seems to be less involved in the media furore than the exstepfather though."

Yes I wonder how much of this is due to the lack of a single father figure, and then the perceived need by him to prove himself as her father (since he isn't biologically). Had it been her biological father, and biological mother, both living together, I think we would have seen fewer dramatic press conferences.

"But even if she had just turned 16 would you really expect her family to react so calmly to the situation? If I was the mother of a 16 yr old in Megan's situation I'd be terrified. About the man's mental state. About whether she was pregnant."

I have actually made that phone call to my mother myself. It was a shock to her, but you know life changes, if she was 16 and pregnant, so be it, not perhaps in Mum's plans for her daughter growing up, but it's not the end of the world whatsoever. At no point can I conceive that you would want your 15, or 16-year-old, daughter to become a part of the Daily Mail's daily cleavage gallery, as here, here, here, here, here and here

I would assume that the parents have given permission for that photo to be used though. It would be pointless putting a photo of her looking younger and in a school uniform, as if they want her to be recognised by someone at the moment, she is more likely to look like that photo than others.

I imagine her parents probably accept the fact that in order to maintain publicity and keep Megan top of the news so that the story carries over into Europe they also have to put up with domestic tabloid reporting. And the more photos they get out there the better, from the point of view of increasing the chances of them being spotted. Her hair for one thing looks different from picture to picture.

The problem is that they seem to be fully entitled, in much of Europe, to just disappear and tell anyone looking for them to go away.

In a sense to the French it's akin to starting a manhunt because somebody's wife left them.

FWIW I don't care if this girl did a total Mata Hari on him, if he is a teacher and she is a pupil then he should keep his hands off her until she has left school, and certainly not travel to France alone with her on a ferry, regardless of what else might have happened between them.

Not really an incentive for him to return is there? Loss of job,poss. divorce/home loss, police investigation, criminal proceedings possibly. She gets grounded for a few weeks

was going to reply to the people who responded to me, but skippy put it much better than I did.

If I may add, I think we are a hypocritical society, happy to turn a blind eye to absolutely horrific things but then coming down like a pile of bricks in a case like this which isn't nearly on the same level. Not anywhere near.

PS: and speeding drivers generally aren't searched for via interpol, nor plastered all over the papers.

Lets say they come back, they cant put her into a locked room. If she wants to be with him, she will still go to be with him. In her eyes, she hasn't done anything wrong and neither has he.

Totally agree with skippy. There is absolutely no reason for this story to be anything more than two inches in the local press, imo.

She is 15 and she went willingly. She is not 10 and she wasn't abducted.

Press conference with Forrests father at 3.15 pm poor man.