Blackmailed teacher hands over £10,000 to teen to keep quiet over their 'affair'

A teenager has admitted to blackmailing his former teacher into handing £10,000 after threatening to expose their 'affair'.

The 18-year-old from Leicester created fake email and Facebook accounts and posed as a stranger who had evidence of sexual encounters between the pair.

The teen sent his first threatening message from a bogus Facebook account in July 2016, weeks after he finished his GCSEs, Leicester Crown Court heard on Monday (19 February).

He claimed to have a picture of her in an "intimate position" with the student, which was in reality himself, and said he wanted £8,000 not to tell the authorities.

She refused, but later received a new message which read: "In that case, watch your life flip upside down in the next few weeks," reported the Leicester Mercury.

After further exchanges she agreed to hand over the cash.

She emptied her savings of £4,000 and took out a £4,000 loan before dropping the money off in bushes near their school, which the young blackmailer collected.

The teacher then blocked the Facebook account, but in December 2016, she received an email demanding more cash - again from a fake address set up by the student.

In an exchange of emails she argued there was nothing inappropriate about the relationship but that she saw potential in the student and simply saw him as a friend.

Sporting activities

The teacher added she felt "obliged" to look out for him as his mother was ill.

The jury heard that during the relationship with the student the teacher had given him money for extra-curricular sporting activities.

She had also given the student "private tuition" sessions in a hotel room and bought him gifts including an iPhone, designer clothes and a Playstation, the court was told.

The older woman eventually agreed to pay her blackmailer an extra £2,000, which she scraped together using credit cards, loans and an overdraft.

The jury heard the student spent his gains on a car and designer clothes.

But in February 2017 she received a final email, this time demanding £12,000. The teacher then decided to contact the police.

The student's home was searched and a phone and a laptop, which had been used to set up the fake email account used in the blackmail were seized.

In a police interview, he denied using blackmail against her. The teen said they were friends and their relationship was strictly platonic.

Sexual misconduct

Defending, Pree Brada said the student "accepts in his police interview he did not make full admissions. That is because he was embarrassed and hadn't disclosed the details to his mother. He knows he will be punished harshly."

Brada added the matter of sexual misconduct was being investigated by the police.

The relationship between the teacher and the pupil described as "inappropriate" throughout the trial.

Sentencing, Judge Timothy Spencer QC said: "Whatever the nature of the relationship, it provides no excuse for blackmail. I've a list of references that show that there is a good side of you. It's a shame you acted so drastically out of character."

The judge added: "The real question is if you have to go away. It gives me no pleasure to say that you do."

The teen was sentenced to eight months in a young offenders' institution. He was also handed a restraining order, which prevents him from contacting the teacher for five years.