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.

My sister ran away with a man more than twice her age when she was 15 - although only a few streets away from home. Mum had the police out and tried to drag her back but she insisted she was there because she wanted to be (and because she wanted to be as far away from our parents as she could) and not because he had suggested it. The police said there was nothing they could do since she was a few months (8) off being 16 and she had made it quite clear it was her own decision and that she loved him.

That was over 30 years ago. They got married when she was 16, went on to have 3 children and have, this weekend, just welcomed their 5th grandchild into the world.

Teenagers are very complex beings. He obviously knows what he is doing is wrong but, for her, it might just be a case of "I want to be with this man because he loves me and no-one is going to stop me". We will never know the whole story. The news report said she had posted that she was "excited for the future".

Its not the first time that a teenager has been in the news for running away with an older man and I am sure it wont be the last. None of which makes it right of course.

There isn't a "strict technical definition" of paedophilia, there is just one simple definition, and this isn't it.

That doesn't detract from the situation. Throwing inappropriate labels about does distract from the gravity of the situation.

If it's in the Daily Mail the poor wife will have to protect her kids from the very loud vocal opinions and judgypantedness of others. She'll have to negotiate the nursery/school run through the wall of tutting tongues and silent stares. I feel so desperately sorry for her.

In the meantime the police and the girls family will be demanding her opinion on the potential location of this CHILD and her husband. Infidelity is devasting enough without the stench of tainted perversion this case carries. It's bad enough when your "rival" is another grown woman, but to think as a mother that it's a child of 15 whose Mum trusted your man? It just doesn't bear thinking about what sort of mental torment she's going through.

Tonight will be spent comforting her children who will have a million and one questions as to why the boys in blue have been visiting so much, and in setting straight all the playground tittle tattle they've had to endure, lest her babies have nightmares. In the still of the night she'll be wondering how the hell she'll pay the mortgage etc with her husbands source of income lost for good. Her family will be telling her to "leave the bastard" and she'll have to deal with her upset inlaws too.

The girls parents must be alternating between incadensecent rage at the vile betrayal of their trust, and sheer terror that their child may never come home.

I honestly hope that the authorities "make an example" of this man with a LONG custodial sentence. He's not "silly" if he was smart enough to qualify as a teacher, he's a dangerous adult predator who has totally destroyed the emotional well being of two families in one fell swoop, by preying on a child in his care.

There should be no attempts made to minimise the seriousness of what he has done. A teacher is in "loco parentis" when a child is in their care. That is not a position to be taken lightly by any means.

Does he have children then bochead? I hadn't seen that reported. Also when do you consider people to no longer be children and suddenly transform not adults?

She'll have to negotiate the nursery/school run through the wall of tutting tongues and silent stares.

It doesn't make a bad situation better but actually, they don't have children so far as I know.

I think some people have missed the point here.

It is less about her being 15 than about her being his pupil.

It matters no how mature she is for her age , or whether she is 15, 16 or even 18.

So had he waited until her 16th birthday, it would still be wrong - unless he had also resigned his job and was no longer her teacher.

He could have done both those things if he wanted to claim to being in love with her.

And I heard some of his tweets read out this morning, ffs. It would be embarrassing to have some teenager spout that shite, never mind someone who is meant to be an adult and in charge of other people's children.

Presumably he no longer has a job?

Agree, TheOneAndOnly. Discounting, for a moment, the legal age of consent in England, whether she was 15 or 16 is a mere detail. The crux of the matter is that a 30 year old teacher has, quite disgracefully, betrayed the trust that was put in him and taken advantage of a pupil.

Bishop Bell School hasn't had favourable media coverage this year so far as inappropriate behaviour/relationships are concerned either.

My DD1 was 16 on Saturday just gone.... we were discussing this case this morning, and she thinks it is absolutely vile. At 16 she is clued-up enough to realise that teachers should not abuse their position in trust this way. She's right.

But I do feel extremely sorry for all concerned, with the exception of the teacher obv.

I don't think anyone is missing that point Maryz, everyone has been agreeing with that point.

I think it's about time there was a rule about teachers and pupils regardless of age. The same as between Doctors and patients. It just simply should not be allowed and that would end all those grey areas. About whether nearly 16 is OK or not. Well it isn't OK.

There is a rule and a law!

He only got married last year! One of the neighbours was quoted in the newspaper today as saying they were constantly arguing. Although perhaps his wife was duped by him initially too and the arguements were caused by her beginning to find out what he was really like?

I was struck by the comment from an earlier poster (sorry cannot recall name) who commented that an unfortunate proportion of men seem to have an attraction to very young girls. I am also wondering why so many men are so badly behaved (thinking of female friends who have been put through the mill by the men in their lives). Is it upbringing?

There was a girl in the local area who similarly moved in with her much older teacher when underage (he was prosecuted and found guilty), had two children with him and married him. They have now split up, and she is left to piece together her life as a single mother, aged 30, having missed out on most of the fun experiences that a girl of her age would have otherwise enjoyed with friends (and boyfriends) her own age.

I'm also rather shocked at there being apparantly inappropriate Facebook and Twitter messages between the two and nothing being done about it by his employers before this happened.

Viviennemary - there is legislation. It clearly states that pupil student relations are forbidden for a variety of reasons in exactly the same way as doctors and their patients, with very similar professional consequences.

The human brain doesn't actually mature until 25. (That's why some SN care & educational provision is currently under discussion for extension until age 25.) There isn't a sudden cut off when someone suddenly becomes fully adult - it's why the issue of trust is SO important, and excatly why the law is designed to protect the teen pupil. The teacher/student relationship involves issues of power & trust that aren't found elsewhere.

Teens are "practicing" at being grown ups and the adults assigned to care for them should have the maturity the teen may as yet lack to define clear boundaries for appropriate behavior. Noone can say that running off to a foreign country with a 15 year old without parental consent even approaches "setting appropriate boundaries" ffs. The aim is to get them through their period of experimentation & spreading their wings and launch them safely into adult life without allowing any mishaps from their natural curiosity causing them permanent lifelong damage.

I'm relieved to hear the wife has no children, as their welfare was really playing on my mind.

Yes, the FB and Tweets I have heard about do seem to point to a sexual relationship

Vile

It's grim, but he isn't a paedophile.

That's something different altogether.

PLEASE CHECK YOUR CHILDS facebook and phone regularly. My friend has just found out her DD was being groomed by a sicko she only found out by checking her phone (she is also only 15)

We might think these kids are sensible but some are not as clued up as they seem. PLEASE, PLEASE check your childs social feeds.

Agree that he is not a paedo.

A stupid idiot, yes.

My issue is the teacher/pupil boundary has been crossed. Not that she is 15. Many teens of that age are having sex, obviously amongst their peer group in the main.

This reminds me of a case at my high school in the early 90s. The chemistry teacher started seeing one of his ex-pupils (star Chemistry pupil incidently) the minute she left school at 18. Nothing was done. He was her teacher for years.

10 years later, once the girl in question had clearly come to her senses and left him, the same teacher was charged with offenses relating to taking indecent images of children in the playground, was charged and lost his career etc.

He did a lot of 'private tutoring' of which a friend of mine had. She now refuses to talk about it and to me it is clear that he had a program of grooming his favourite pupils that lasted for years. He was infact a scummy paedo all along, yet his 'relationship' with the 18 year old was somehow just deemed acceptable. I think this case could well be similar.

ChaoticismyLife this happend with a girl when i was at school but everyone could see it coming the teacher involved was always out at the local pub were all the 6th formers went

He was very handsome and used to also go to a disco were it was know they let in underage

I may get flamed for this but i also dont think its helpful having teachers that are much older than the 6th formers working in high schools

Not the same but at my childs primary school there was a teacher who used to sleep with all the mums that ened very badly left under a clould after my childs year finshed

I am quite happy to label him as an abuser. He was in a position of authority and trust with an expectation he would act in the best interests of the children he teaches. Instead he sends inappropriate messages to an underage girl and then runs off with her. It is a complete abuse of his position and and in my view, an abuse of the girl's rights.

I hope they find him and throw the book at him.

Smellslikecatpee said:

"When I was 14and a half, my best friend was 16, we ran around with her cousin who was 18 and in the local uni.

One of his mates asked me out after a family party, I said yes we were about half an hour in to the date when I made a comment which caused him to check my age. Turned out he was 20, and had assumed I was 18/19.

Bless him he was horrified."

This sounds familiar - when I was at university I met a lovely girl at a gig. We got an well etc and I asked her if she wanted to come on to the house party I was going to later. She then said something about school and homework and her dad picking her up. I was both horrified and a bit disappointed. I had thought she was at University too.

I later became a teacher, and occasionally some of the sixth form girls would be a little flirty but there is nothing attractive about someone whose coursework you have to mark. I remember teaching one sixth form group in the summer and one of the girls had a low-cut crop top on. A female colleague was doing some other work in the corner of the room on a spare computer and said to me "I wouldn't want to be a man teaching her" or something to that effect, as though men are liable to be unable to control themselves. I genuinely hadn't noticed what she was wearing until then. Sadly men like this one in the news add to that perception

I was talking about this with DS1 who is weeks off being 18. He can not imagine wanting to be with a 15 yo girl, he said and was shocked that they would have anything in common.

WRT him being her teacher, that is incredibly important when you are looking at this. It is so wrong, I don't know where to begin. He has abused every part of his position IMVO, it makes me wonder if this is the first time. It makes me feel really sick and if she were my DD I would want to chop his cock off!

The poor girl is now in a foreign country with what would appear a very volatile individual. I bet she has no money, I wouldn't be surprised if she is really scared and is depserate to come home, but just doesn't know how.

Oh, and according to the Daily Mail, her Dad teaches at the sister school to This man, so I bet he knows him quite well.

Well its done now. Yup awful abuse of trust etc.agree with everything that has been said,..But now that he HAS done it I hope he treats her properly and doesn't dump and humiliate her, and try to win back wife etc..