Jeremy Forrest

[YamahaWolf]

He was a teacher in a position of trust. Parents should be safe in the knowledge that their children are safe at school. He abused that position and the sentence reflects the seriousness of that abuse rather than any sexual relationship. He would have been expecting it.

 

Agreed, had he not been her teacher I would have maybe taken a less harsh view of it. But when you become a teacher you have a duty to remain professional and support the children with their learning, these children look up to as a role model, you should not have sexual relationships with them!

[Gin]

I hear stories of people who attack, steal and even those who do this again and again and get off with warnings and short sentences.

Then this comes along and she happily states that she loves him, wanted to be with him the whole time and even made some of the advances. That he in the whole time was worried about what he was doing and felt awful.

I think that yes he should have ended up with some punishment for what was done but not this.

Don't think this is sickening at all, just two people who seamed to love each other forgetting the laws.

Mugging an elderly lady after she takes out the only money she has left to be able to live, leaving her broken to die just for £50, That's sickening.

[Bogof]

I think that this situation with teachers and pupils is far more common than most people think.......so should we lock up a large percentage of the teachers in this country?

 

I used to work in secondary schools, and can guarantee that this IS far more common than most people realise. I can personally recall at least FIVE instances where an adult working in a school was involved in an inappropriate relationship with a pupil. All were dealt with "informally".

[Remy]

I can't understand why this is front page news. Yes he abused his position of trust but she was no unwilling participant and not an innocent child at 15 - there are some extremely forward 15 year olds about! It's blown up out of all proportion IMO.

[Bonniebird]

I guess because he ran away to France with her and it had a lot of media attention. It's a topical subject with all the stuff in the media with the Jimmy Saville thing and Stuart Hall etc...but they really were abusing their roles. Jeremy Forrest strikes me more as a naieve idiot - what he did was wrong but not 5 and a half years wrong.

It all seems a bit like trial by media to me.

Our Company HQ is in France and my colleagues there couldn't understand what all the fuss was about - the age of consent there is 15 anyway

[Smokin Joe]

I can't understand why this is front page news.

 

Probably because shagging an attractive girl in a school uniform is the secret fantasy of many a sleazy tabloid hack. They like to disguise the fact with mock outrage.

[Fozzie]

His term is too long in contrast to what other crimes receive

Ive seen so many now. And most of the "predators" leave forged paper trails to make out they were innocent parties afterwards. You can always tell the sort as they usually have familys then claim not to know what a year 9 SATS exam is.

This guy I think he knew what he was doing. Maybe he did love her... But at 15 her love for him could just be misplaced given at that time you are going through all sorts of hormonal changes and so on. When people said "you don't know what love is" to me when I was young I was offended. But a few mistakes later I realised I didnt.

He should have known this, and despite his own feelings he should have done the right thing. If she was serious he would have let her leave school at 16 to go to college and then pursued her.

I have little sympathy for him, he made matters bad by running for it. Also chasing teens isnt pedophilia it's hebephilia, so he's incorrectly branded. One implies he touches little kids. The other implies he gets involved with teenagers.

[uk190]

he was up for child abduction and sexual 5 counts of sexual activity with a child. the sentance could have been longer..

the fact that she consented makes it a victimless crime in somefolks eyes. judges have to be impartial to this and the judge judged forrest to be a threat to young females.

do i think 5 years is too long? yes. his life is ruined before he even sets foot in a prison.

others convicted of similar crimes have actually been spared a custodial sentance because in the sentancing judge's view, they had already been punished by the media coverage and the irrepairable damage to their career.

ultimately he was a teacher who abused a position of trust. teachers know better than to take the risk. and in these days of media hysterics, running away with her was never going to end well.

[bex]

i dont know if it is to long for punishment or not. i wonder how many who are saying it is would say that if it was their little girl. yes, she is a little girl, at 15 girls think they are mature enough to know what they want and what they are feeling, but they are not. they are influential and he as a teacher knows this and took advantage of it.

have you thought that since there have been a few teacher/student relationships hitting the headlines recently the judge decided that teachers were not taking their role of responsible adult seriously enough and upped the sentence to act as a deterrent? so the next time a teacher starts to consider a relationship they step back and think about it twice. inappropriate liaisons are that and when between an adult and a young influential emotional roller-coaster of a teen its worse.

we also do not know ALL the facts, there may be something we haven't been told that gave the judge cause to give higher sentence.

at the end of the day he should have walked away, end of. he should have thought of the consequences and walked away, he didn't, he then made a bad situation worse by running away, yes she consented but, she was seduced and influenced by what he said to her and her ideas of excitement and adventure.

i this stops it happening in the future then i think it is right.

[acting_strange]

i dont know if it is to long for punishment or not. i wonder how many who are saying it is would say that if it was their little girl. yes, she is a little girl, at 15 girls think they are mature enough to know what they want and what they are feeling, but they are not. they are influential and he as a teacher knows this and took advantage of it.

have you thought that since there have been a few teacher/student relationships hitting the headlines recently the judge decided that teachers were not taking their role of responsible adult seriously enough and upped the sentence to act as a deterrent? so the next time a teacher starts to consider a relationship they step back and think about it twice. inappropriate liaisons are that and when between an adult and a young influential emotional roller-coaster of a teen its worse.

we also do not know ALL the facts, there may be something we haven't been told that gave the judge cause to give higher sentence.

at the end of the day he should have walked away, end of. he should have thought of the consequences and walked away, he didn't, he then made a bad situation worse by running away, yes she consented but, she was seduced and influenced by what he said to her and her ideas of excitement and adventure.

i this stops it happening in the future then i think it is right.

 

Beautifully said Bex

[techno]

Saying they are little girls at 15 is naive they are not, I would even say quite a lot will be sexually active, I know for a fact one of mine was.

Also maturity in 2 differing 15 year olds can be worlds apart once again I have experience here, this case boils down to the fact he was a teacher IMO that is what made it worse in the laws eyes, age theoretically should have nothing to do with it.

[acting_strange]

Saying they are little girls at 15 is naive they are not, I would even say quite a lot will be sexually active, I know for a fact one of mine was.

Also maturity in 2 differing 15 year olds can be worlds apart once again I have experience here, this case boils down to the fact he was a teacher IMO that is what made it worse in the laws eyes, age theoretically should have nothing to do with it.

 

Just because a girl can have sex and children does not make her mature enough to deal with the complex issues that surround these issues. Girls as young as twelve have been have had babies and are having sex this does not mean that they understand the ramifications, all it can mean is that they understand the concept of pleasure.

Age had got everything to do with it...

[Aesandre]

I do love these conversations.

Controversial thought.... As little as 100 years ago our "morality" dictated our opinion that women were ready anywhere from the age of 10. Usually based on first-period etc....It's more-so of a "Social responsibility" that we believe the age is now 16.

Personally I find this funny....

Guy: Hey, you look cute. Fancy a drink?

Girl: Sorry, but I'm only 16. Perhaps we can have a shag instead?

Though i must say the teacher-student rule is there for a reason, most guy's will have the school-girl dress up (With an actual adult!!) dream but you've got to learn to say no...comes with the job. The maturity aspect differs with all, i knew mature girls (Back when i was 14-15) that handled themselves better than some girls my age now! (24...)

[techno]

Saying they are little girls at 15 is naive they are not, I would even say quite a lot will be sexually active, I know for a fact one of mine was.

Also maturity in 2 differing 15 year olds can be worlds apart once again I have experience here, this case boils down to the fact he was a teacher IMO that is what made it worse in the laws eyes, age theoretically should have nothing to do with it.

 

Just because a girl can have sex and children does not make her mature enough to deal with the complex issues that surround these issues. Girls as young as twelve have been have had babies and are having sex this does not mean that they understand the ramifications, all it can mean is that they understand the concept of pleasure.

Age had got everything to do with it...

Then why aren't the courts clogged with cases? Or does it only count over a certain age?

[Smokin Joe]

have you thought that since there have been a few teacher/student relationships hitting the headlines recently the judge decided that teachers were not taking their role of responsible adult seriously enough and upped the sentence to act as a deterrent? so the next time a teacher starts to consider a relationship they step back and think about it twice.

 

You don't need a five and a half year sentence to deter other teachers from doing the same thing, Bex. For people who are from basically respectable stratas of society loss of career and the shame of seeing the Sun headline, "Paedo teacher shagged me senseless" is enough to make the vast majority think twice about sampling the goods.

From what various female newspaper columnists have written in the wake of this case teacher/pupil affairs used to be widespread, I'd bet in the climate we have now they are the exception.

[acting_strange]

Saying they are little girls at 15 is naive they are not, I would even say quite a lot will be sexually active, I know for a fact one of mine was.

Also maturity in 2 differing 15 year olds can be worlds apart once again I have experience here, this case boils down to the fact he was a teacher IMO that is what made it worse in the laws eyes, age theoretically should have nothing to do with it.

 

Just because a girl can have sex and children does not make her mature enough to deal with the complex issues that surround these issues. Girls as young as twelve have been have had babies and are having sex this does not mean that they understand the ramifications, all it can mean is that they understand the concept of pleasure.

Age had got everything to do with it...

Then why aren't the courts clogged with cases? Or does it only count over a certain age?

 

Because very often theses cases are heard in childrens court...which are held in secret...sometimes not even the parents are allowed in...