A 25-year-old British trainee school teacher, accused of seducing a 16-year-old student, is now exonerated. A jury at the Liverpool Crown Court threw out the charges against her, and she walked free Thursday and said she was ecstatic at her vindication.
Her arrest last year predictably made screaming headlines.
“Hannah McIntyre, 24, has been suspended from her job at Merchant Taylors school, in Crosby, Merseyside.
The classics teacher was arrested and questioned by police last week on suspicion of abusing her position of trust. Social services are also investigating.
She has been granted bail while further inquiries are made.”
Three students who visited her were plied with cider before one of them was seduced to bed. So said the reports.
But apparently it was she who was the vicitm. The court was told that McIntyre admitted buying cider for the boys from an off-licence. She later told the school's headmaster that three of his pupils had stayed the night in her flat.
During the school's investigation, the boys denied drinking alcohol or that anyone went to the teacher's bedroom. But the 16-year-old pupil told his mother in December 2008 that he had sex with McIntyre.
Four months after she started working at the £8,000-a-year school, the boy and two friends called at her home. The court heard that the boys had a history of taunting the teacher and had locked her in a cupboard, hiding her mobile phone on a high shelf where the she could not reach it.