In today's newspaper is the story of a teacher who had a sexual encounter with a pupil. The case was taken to a Crown Court. The teacher is 26 years old, the pupil is 15 years old. The implicit trust in the educational system is teachers and pupils respect each other but never take advantage of it. At court the teacher got a sentence of 15 months half of which had to be served before release. In English law there is no such thing as statutory rape, this is a fact. Yet this was the sentence given. Which seems pretty lenient. The leniency borders on ridiculous. The affair was a lesbian one, the teacher is Helen Goddard. Of course the pupil's identity is secret. They went to Paris, to see a Gay Pride march, the parents of the pupil (child) didn't know their daughter was with this teacher. The judge after sentencing, would not sign an order disallowing the teacher to see the pupil. He thought they had both suffered enough although the judge did put her on the sex offenders register for ten years as well as a few months locked up.
Now lets consider the scenario again. If the teacher was a man and the girl he had an affair with was 15 years old. Consider him also to be 26 years old. The girl seeks his attention because he is a popular teacher and then they go at it like rabbits in a hotel room hidden away from the world. A male mature teacher of 26. He goes on to intimate they have a wonderful thing and their relationship can continue even when she is 16 years old. Exactly what happened with Helen Goddard. Then I ask, how would this situation with a man be viewed in such circumstances? He would be branded loudly as a paedophile, he would be put into the secure block of a prison, he would never work again, an order banning his contact with the pupil would of been signed and the trueness of this situation would of hit with greater weight.
Helen Goddard took advantage of her position and as a lesbian it may seem the judge was more lenient towards sentencing. Of course the papers can not print the entire facts of the case, but it would seem to most readers the judgement is questionable. No doubt in prison, even if it's for only seven and a half months, Helen Goddard will find another lover, one maybe not as young but one certainly of legal age.
