Teacher and pupil ‘were no Romeo and Juliet’

A married teacher fled to France with a 15-year-old pupil who had a crush on him, the day after police questioned her about their sexual relationship, a court has heard.

Fearing that they were about to be exposed, Jeremy Forrest, 30, booked them on a cross-Channel ferry to Calais before spending seven days on the run, it is alleged.

Jurors heard that their relationship amounted to Forrest committing a “gross and long-term breach of trust”.

Lewes Crown Court heard that keen musician Forrest taught maths at Bishop Bell C of E School in Eastbourne, East Sussex, and that his marriage to wife Emily was strained.

In France, he and the girl dyed their hair to try to avoid detection, Forrest set up a French email account and bought a French mobile phone, and bogus CVs were drafted in an internet café to help land them work.

Prosecutor Richard Barton said Forrest used the alias Jack Dean and the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, gave herself a bogus name on the false CVs.

But an English bar owner to whom Forrest had applied for work recognised the pair from media reports, leading eventually to them being caught in Bordeaux on Sept 28 last year.

Opening the Crown’s case, Mr Barton told the jury of four women and eight men: “This is not Romeo and Juliet; this is a 15-year-old girl with her own vulnerabilities, and a 30-year-old teacher.

“When parents send their children to school, they quite properly expect that those who teach their children will care for them properly.”

He continued: “This case, the prosecution say, is about a gross and long- term breach of trust on the part of this defendant, not only of trust placed in him by the girl’s mother and her family but also of other teachers and the governors of that school.”

Forrest, of Chislehurst Rd, Petts Wood, Kent, denies child abduction.

The court heard Forrest arranged to take the girl to his home for sex when his wife was away. They also had sex in his car and he booked them into local hotels for overnight stays.

Mr Barton said the girl was a willing participant in them fleeing the country but that cannot be used by Forrest as a defence.

Their disappearance led to several anxious days for the girl’s family and involved intensive searches on both sides of the Channel, he said.

The trial continues.