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Religious Education Teacher Jailed For Sex With 15-year-old Boy

by Gopalan on Nov 26 2009 11:11 AM

A British religion education teacher has been jailed for having sex with one of her own pupils. She pleaded guilty to ten charges of sexual activity with a child under 16.

Madeleine Martin, 39, was actually the boy’s mentor in the school. But she seemed to have other ideas.

Jennifer Birch, prosecuting, told the Manchester Crown Court that Martin started giving the boy gifts, including a mobile phone, and sending him messages on Facebook.

Martin, a mother-of-two, even persuaded the teenager to have her name tattooed in a heart on his arm to remind him of her when they were apart.

She, in return, had a tattoo for him of some Hebrew script on her lower back.

She then drove to a nearby retail park where they had full sex in the car and Martin performed a sex act on the boy, before they were spotted and asked to leave by a security guard.

The following day Martin drove to Daisy Nook country park where she and the boy, whose mother was abroad at the time caring for her terminally ill father, again engaged in sexual activity.

Two days later they had sex again at the empty home of the boy’s uncle.

Martin then changed her identity on Facebook to hide their growing relationship and invited the boy to her own home where they again had sex while her two teenage daughters, aged 14 and 17, were out.

Martin, who qualified as a teacher in 2005, refused to comment about her sexual relations with the boy when questioned by detectives, Daily Mail reported.

In a victim impact statement, the boy’s mother, a 49-year-old businesswoman, said her son had been taunted by other children and was no longer in full-time education.

Her ‘once vivacious’ child had become lethargic and had “lost his sparkle”, the mother added.

Mark Fireman, defending, said Martin had acted ‘wholly and utterly out of character’ and had been going through a series of personal difficulties at the time of the affair.

Her marriage was breaking up and her sister had been diagnosed with terminal cancer from which she has since died.

All that left her very vulnerable, and sex with the boy was a desperate attempt to claw her way out of her deep depression.

 ‘She never intended to have a sexual relationship - it was something which grew over time. She is not predatory - it is something she fell into rather than something she sought.’

Judge Jonathan Geake told her: ‘Rather than mentor him in the proper way, you used him as an emotional support and comfort for yourself.

‘You started to abuse the trust you were entrusted with. Eventually you lured him into intimacies which should never have happened. You are to blame, not him. Those of either sex in a position of trust must expect significant punishment when they abuse that trust - especially sexually.’

He sentenced her to 32 months in prison and also ordered her to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for life.



Source-Medindia
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