A primetime TV documentary has asked whether teachers who have consenting relationships with pupils over 16 should be criminalised or not. It's caused rumblings in the corridors, says Emma Cowing
'I KNEW it was wrong and immoral and completely ridiculous, but … I don't know. I just allowed it to happen." Thus did fictional teacher Sheba Hart, the protagonist of Zoe Heller's 2005 novel Notes on A Scandal (memorably played by Cate Blanchett in
the film version), attempt to defend her affair with a male pupil.
The boy Hart was having an affair with was just 15 – below the age of consent – and Hart ultimately received a prison sentence. But what happens when this occurs in real life and the pupil is 16 or over?
One teacher, Nicola Prentice, received a suspended prison sentence and was put on the sex offenders register after giving her 16-year-old pupil, Dean Dainty, a mobile phone with her number programmed into it – an action which lead to an 18-month sexual relationship between the pair.
Then there was the male teacher who had "one kiss" with a 17-year-old female pupil at an end-of-term party. He was arrested, charged with engaging in sexual activity with a child while in a position of trust and was also put on the sex offenders register, which automatically bars those on it from working with children for ten years.
But not everyone thinks that teachers who have affairs with their pupils – provided they are of or over the age of consent and it is a consensual relationship – should be criminalised. Last night, Chris Keates, the General Secretary of teaching union the NASUWT, spoke out on ITV's Tonight (scheduled to be shown in Scotland on Thursday, 7:30pm), saying that the way teachers were treated under current laws was an "anomaly".
"If a teacher has a relationship with a pupil at the school at which they teach, and it could be an 18-year-old pupil in sixth form, then that teacher can be prosecuted and end up on the sex offenders register," she said.
"Clearly there have to be appropriate disciplinary sanctions in the school where a teacher works to make sure that inappropriate relationships don't develop. But it does seem a step too far, when there has been a consensual relationship, to put that person on the sex offenders register when, in fact, they could have a legitimate relationship with an 18-year-old at another school."
Since 1991, some 129 teachers have been prosecuted for having relationships with pupils, but a Sheffield University study conducted in 2005 suggested that as many as 1,500 such intimate relationships develop every year. While many fizzle out quickly and remain undetected, for those that are uncovered the effects can be devastating.
Margaret Morrissey from the campaign group Parents Outloud says that while such relationships are extremely unsavoury, question marks remain over how teachers should be treated by the law in such cases. "It is wrong for a teacher to have a relationship with a student in their school, even one over the age of consent. I would have been less than impressed if a teacher had started a relationship with my daughter while she was at school.
"However, there is a question as to whether (the teachers concerned] should be classed as a paedophiles, and (there is also] a risk that labelling them as such devalues the term."
Keates argues that a teacher in such a relationship "isn't a person who is showing any tendencies for being a sexual offender; this is a person who's made a serious error of professional judgment. I don't think they need to be criminalised."
But if the law were to be changed, would it run the risk of failing to protect young people? Zoe Hilton, an NSPCC policy adviser, says: "The law is very clear that if a teacher abuses his or her position by forming a sexual relationship with a pupil, they could be prosecuted and this remains the case even if the child gives their consent. The law is, quite rightly, there to protect children."
And then there is the effect on the pupil. Dainty, whose teacher was 22 when she initiated an affair with the then-16-year old, says he was traumatised by the relationship. "It affected me in a big way and I started to do stupid things after it and not be myself. It took me a long time to get myself back together. It took a piece of my life away, really."
Anita Naik, an agony aunt and writer for teenagers, says it isn't surprising that vulnerable teens can sometimes be attracted to a relationship with their teacher.
"It's easy, particularly within a school environment, where a teenager is away from home and parents, for them to become admiring of a teacher, someone who seems to have all the answers," she says.
"If that teacher is lavishing attention on them and making them feel like they're understood, perhaps for the first time, then that can be incredibly important for the pupil.
"You cannot underestimate how misunderstood many teenagers feel and how much of an impact it can have for them to feel as if somebody does understand them."
And while some teacher/pupil relationships may be the result of a slip up and what Keates would describe as an "anomaly", perhaps even rooted in real emotion, there are some teachers who have used the teacher/pupil to abuse their position of authority. Since 1993, some 6,000 teachers have been accused of child abuse, 2,200 of which were investigated, resulting in 88 convictions.
In February last year, married teacher Steven Edwards, 34, received a five-year jail sentence for repeated sex offences against teenage girls at his school. He was convicted of five charges of abusing a position of trust by having sexual intercourse with a child under 16 and three similar charges with a child under 18.
One of his victims, who was 16 at the time, told police she felt "hollow and confused" by the experience, adding: "I thought I would feel elated and full of life, but this was not the case."
Yet some pupil-teacher relationships do, against all the odds, appear to work out. In August, Clive Richards, 50, a former religious studies teacher and deputy head, announced that he and his former pupil, Jessica Anderson, 17, are to marry next year. Richards – who left his post at Mounts Bay School, Penzance, in April 2007 and claims their relationship began after she turned 16 and after he had left the Cornwall school – left his wife, with whom who he has two teenage sons, for Anderson, who is now living with him.
Anderson says she is "deeply in love", complaining: "I am frustrated that everyone thinks I've been brainwashed. I am an individual with my own mind and this is what I want." Social services have launched an investigation into the couple's living arrangements.
Keates wants to make clear that she doesn't approve of teacher/pupil relationships, she just doesn't think teachers should be vilified as sex offenders. "I'd be very concerned if it was thought the NASUWT was saying that kind of relationship was OK," she says. "We don't think it is."
