AIBU to think he deserve to be in PRISON, its abuse!

[LittlePeaPod]

Braving the AIBU forum.. I genuinely want to know if IABU and hope this doesn't go against MN talk guidelines. Sensitive subject I know but I want to hear what you think.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23004956

Personally, I totally agree with the fact this teacher has been prosecuted and I think he should serve every single day of the five and a half year sentence. To make it clear if the situation was different and this was a female teacher I would expect her to be prosecuted too.

In my eyes all of the points below tantamount to child abuse, grooming and a criminal offence. Made worse by the fact he was in a position of influence and trust:

• sexually kissing a 14 year old girl in the classroom, that you teach her in
  
• starting to have sex with a 15 year old pupil in her uniform in your car, hotels and your own marital home
  
• sending what sounds to be sexually explicit texts, picture messages, tweets and emails
  
• calling her mother and lying about rumours which he knew were true. Making it look like her daughter was making it up and making the mother feel bad about her daughters behaviour
  
• taking a child out of the country without her parents consent, on your wife's stolen passport
  
• and god only knows what else!
  

I don't care how mature she may look or sound. I think the whole "this is a misunderstood love story" is a load of BS. I don't care if she agreed to go to France or willingly slept with him, his still in the wrong. Bottom line is he was the adult, in a position of trust and influence. It was his responsibility to put a stop to this, tell the school or her parents about her crush. But he didn't, instead he took advantage of a young vulnerable teenage pupil with a crush on her teacher.

In my opinion his a criminal and should be locked up for every day of the five and a half years. Adults sleeping with children can't not use the excuse "ohhhhh but it was/is love". Where do we draw the line 12, 13 years old? Why any parent would think his sentence is harsh s beyond me. Would they be happy to hand their 14/15 year old children over to 30 year old adults?

Ladies and gentlemen (I know there are one or two out there), am I been unreasonable?

[Wishfulmakeupping]

I totally agree OP, I won't link to DM but the majority of comments are that he's not done anything that bad and the punishment is over the top
Facts are he was in a position of trust and she was underage so Im not sure how anyone can defend his actions he groomed her FFS

[LittlePeaPod]

Euphemia I have been reading the articles on this case over the last few days (different publications including one or two red tops) and I am shocked to read how many people post on the articles trying to justify and excuse his behaviour. Some people are actually posting things along the lines of "I don't think he has done anything wrong or our laws are out of date, or its legal in Spain as age of consent is 13, they are in love leave them along blah blah". Some comments are blaming the mother... It's shocked me and I wanted to know what the people on this forum think...

[LittlePeaPod]

Thanks everyone. I was starting o think it was just me. The DM lot seem to be the worst... What's wrong with these people.

[Tiredtrout]

Littlepeapod yanbu and when he comes out if she is under 18 and they continue he can be prosecuted again due to him having been her teacher as it still counts as a breach of his position of trust. I doubt he will serve even 3 years before he is out on license

[JakeBullet]

He is manipulative, even the Judge made note that the girl's testimony in court was substantially different to statements she made to the police and now agreed with HIS version of events. He has obviously been manipulating her prior to the trial.
Be interesting to see if he maintains any interest now he has been found guilty and imprisoned.

[LittlePeaPod]

Interesting. Will have a little look. Still can't get my head round any other opinion than, he should be locked up.

Agree with everyone's views so far..... His a manipulative nasty little man who has destroyed a family, abused a young girl and has made no apology for his behaviour.... It's applauing! It will e a shame if e gets out early...

[Footface]

I was shocked by comments I read that seemed to think its ok. I listen to callers on the radio saying that it was a live story and he shouldn't get jail time.

He's where he should be. He's a teacher that abused a child

[raisah]

He definitely deserves his sentences as he is a sexuql predator. However, how do you deal with his victim who is obviousky deluded by visions of love etc. Who thinks she is mature enough to have sex with someone so much older. Is she being offeref counselling?

There are a lot of teenagers engaged in underaged sex but the issue in this case was the fact that he was her teacher. I think sex education needs to be more joined up to include outside agencies who come into schools to talk about grooming, abduction etc. Its not easy to stop determined teenagers to do what they want to do.
Parents need to be confident to approach difficult subjects and schools need to do more to protect their pupils and to continually monitor their teachers.

[anonacfr]

The irony as someone else pointed out on the other thread is that if he had been having an affair with a colleague people would have called him a cheating bastard and felt sorry for his wife.
But because he started a relationship with a 14 year old child it's suddenly a romantic forbidden love scenario????

I just don't get it.

[Frenchvanilla]

I feel really, really sorry for the girl.

This odious little man has groomed and manipulated her to get his sexual kicks.

She still thinks she's in love. She's posting things on the internet, everyone in the country knows who she is, her relationship with her family is in tatters- how is she going to overcome this in the future? How is she going to go to university, get a job, or get married? What about when the children she has yet to have google their mother?

Once she grows into a young woman she'll realise what a horrible slimeball he is, and that she wouldn't have gone within in a million miles of him if she'd been older and a little bit more mature when they met.

She'll come to realisation that she was abused, and will have to deal with the emotional ramifications of that for the rest of her life.

All so this vile, sweaty man could get a shag.

I dearly hope that her family carry on trying to get through to her, and get her some therapy.

[SanityClause]

Remember when all the allegations about Jimmy Saville first came out, and lots of people said, how different it all was in the '80s.

Not so very different, it seems.

[englishteacher78]

I'm a teacher, of course he should be locked up! I have to say I was someone who thought teacher - sixth former relationships were immoral before they were illegal. It is a total abuse of position.
And as has been pointed out up thread he was also someone's husband. It's not a charming love story, it's seedy.

[LittlePeaPod]

I agree that the girl needs support and counciling to help her through this. Lets hope she is getting this. Hopefully in time the relationship with her family can be repaired. As It stands her short term future prospcts seems to be deem and the influence this nasty little man and his family seem to have can not be helping her relationship with her family and prospects of moving on from this dreadful situation. She needs time and spce to recover. This girl should out with friends, studying and at home with her family. The people at truely love her.

[LittlePeaPod]

Me too. It's really sad, depressing and really upsets me to think there are people out there that actually think this is some how a justifiable situation...

[DeepFriedRyvita]

This is my teacher from school. link

This shorter link contains a photo of him here

I was very messed up at school. Eating disorder, self harm, crap at home. I fainted a lot due to starving myself/vomiting/lax abuse. This teacher was always lovely and kind and caring to me. He was the schools first aider so would get paged if I was ill. He was also a guidance teacher, not sure what the term in England is but he was the point of call for a set group if they needed support and he taught them PSHE. So he was down as a nice guy. He was also a scout leader and taught 1st aid voluntarily at weekends.

You can see from the photos he was not particularly attractive - very over weight, balding, quite short, when he grew a beard it was bright orange.

I always felt I could trust him, he was on my side. As it turned out I had a specific teacher who I found it very easy to talk to - but he would have been a realy possibility for me to confide in. I now feel very sad and confused about him.

I left school 11 years ago, these stories are more recent. I wonder if I had got close and confised in him what would have happened.

[DeepFriedRyvita]

Oops wrong thread - meant that for the other one

[TheDailyWail]

Actually I overheard a depressing conversation between sixth formers who believed that the young girl was also responsible. At that point I had to cut in and explain to them that she was underage, he was in a position of responsibility and she was not to blame at all. It is sad that they have these opinions - imagine what it must be like for her at school now?

[iamadoozermum]

My concern will be that she may think that she "owes" him to stick with him, because she thinks he has gone to prison for her. So, being so young, even if she wanted to end it, she may feel that she can't.

What got me on Jeremy Vine's radio show was the people saying that 15 year olds can be manipulative and want sexual relationships, that it was their choice to have sexual relationships etc. But as someone pointed out in the other thread, this was the kind of excuse given for not investigating the gang sex offences in places like Rotherham.

We see lots of minimisation in these kinds of things, like the Nigella Lawson case, but just because the victim doesn't think a crime has happened doesn't make it legal and OK.

[LittlePeaPod]

My concern will be that she may think that she "owes" him to stick with him, because she thinks he has gone to prison for her. So, being so young, even if she wanted to end it, she may feel that she can't

Good point. And the fact there seems to be no distance between the Girl and his family won't help.. His family need to do the right thing and put some distance in the relationship.

[Mia4]

YANBU, I've not seen anyone saying he isn't a skeevey bastard, thankfully.

What I have seen though is comparing of sentences in that this judge gives a good sentencing yet other judges let paedophiles off with much less, and other rapists too. There seems to be a 'wtf' about the inconsistency in sentencing perverts and the public are often not priivvy to why that is so (other circumstances, plea bargins etc) so I think a lot of people start comparing saying why does X get such and such when Y did worse/same and gets much less.