Jail For Teacher Who Had Affair With Pupil

Jail For Teacher Who Had Affair With Pupil
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A teacher has been jailed for having sex with a 16-year-old schoolboy – at the same time as meeting strangers for sex in car parks.

Deputy head of drama Janette Kilner, 33, started a relationship with the boy after he gave her a card and bracelet for Christmas.

She first arranged for him to have extra tuition, then began exchanging explicit texts and emails before finally kissing him and inviting him into bed.

A court was told how - in the last of her six sexual encounters with the boy in July - Kilner picked him up in her car and drove him to her home in Dagenham, Essex.

He told police she removed his trousers as they watched TV on the sofa before they went to the bedroom for sex.

Prosecutor Gary Pons told East London's Snaresbrook Crown Court: "It was during 2013 that their relationship developed beyond a teacher-pupil relationship.

"They exchanged email addresses and phone numbers and began sending each other text messages plainly and clearly sexual in nature.

"Miss Kilner would pick him up in her car and there was improper behaviour during these journeys. Matters progressed to kissing as they drove around the neighbourhood.

"On July 10 Miss Kilner picked up the boy by a park and drove him to her house where they began to kiss. She then helped remove his trousers as they were watching TV.

"She wanted him to go upstairs and he at first said no as he had no condom. But eventually they went upstairs and had full intercourse."

Mr Pons added: "She was meeting unknown men and women in car parks for sex during this time."

The court was told that Kilner was secretly trawling the net seeking illicit night-time trysts in vehicles with men and women she met in woods and car parks – a practice known as 'dogging'.

Jurors heard the teacher was going through a difficult separation from an ex and her father was also terminally ill.

Rumours of the affair with the teenager spread around St Thomas the Apostle College in Nunhead, South East London - where Miss Kilner had taught for five years - and she was suspended on July 27 before being arrested.

Kilner denied the charges, claiming the boy had consented. But she was found guilty of six counts of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust.

She was jailed for 14 months and struck off.

Judge Judith Hughes told her: "Clearly this is an offence of a serious breach of trust. It must be noted the boy was a willing participant, but that does not excuse the behaviour as you were a teacher at his school."

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