How prevalent are teacher-pupil relationships?

A poll found one in six people knew of someone who had had a relationship with a teacher, but unions say incidents are very rare
Jeremy Forrest and Megan Stammers
Jeremy Forrest, a maths teacher at Bishop Bell school, and 15-year-old pupil Megan Stammers. Photograph: EPA/Tim Stewart News

It is difficult to gauge how prevalent inappropriate pupil-teacher relationships in schools are as statistics are difficult to obtain and anecdotal evidence can be misleading.

A 2007 YouGov survey of 2,200 adults said one in six knew of someone who had had an "intimate relationship" with a teacher while at school. Between 1991 and 2008 a total of 129 teachers were prosecuted for relationships with pupils, according to reports.

Teaching unions report that incidents are actually "very rare". Yet this is not the first questionable relationship to emerge at Bishop Bell school. One school has dealt with no fewer than five incidents. When, in 2009, Christopher Reen, 31, a classroom supervisor at Headlands school in Bridlington, was jailed for three years and four months after admitting six counts of sexual activity with a 15-year-old female pupil, it emerged four ex-staff at the same school had faced the courts in recent years over inappropriate sexual conduct.

Incidents are not confined to older male teachers with younger female pupils. Helen Goddard, a 26-year-old private school music teacher, was jailed for 15 months in 2009 over a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl. Madeleine Martin, 39, a religious education teacher, was jailed for 32 months after a brief relationship with a 15-year-old at the Manchester boys school where she worked.

It is an offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 for a person over 18 to have a sexual relationship with a child under 18 where that person is in a position of trust in respect of that child, even if the relationship is consensual. That applies where the child is in full-time education and the person works in the same place as the child, even if the person does not teach the child.

Alan McLean, a chartered educational psychologist, said that although they are above the age of consent 16 to 18-year-olds are still deemed vulnerable in law. "It's an asymmetrical power relationship. That's at the heart of this, and there is obviously a huge taboo and fear of children being exploited in relationships. They are vulnerable in that power relationship, and that is why there is such a strong reaction," he said. "It's not just teachers. It can be youth leaders, sports coaches … the child is open to be manipulated, just in terms of feeling beholden to the adult."

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT union, said such cases represented a very tiny percentage of allegations made against teachers. "It is not something that is common across the profession. When it does happen then, obviously, it is dealt with very severely. I've never known a case where a member has got to court that there either hasn't been some sanction against them at court, or dismissal for gross misconduct at school level."

The union has expressed concerns over whether teachers who have had relationships with pupils aged over 16 should be placed on the sex offenders register.

"What we were questioning was if that same teacher had a relationship with a sixth former down the road, that wouldn't be seen as something to put them on the sex offenders register," she said. "And clearly there was an anomaly in the law. Which is not to say we condone such relationships. At any level and any age, within the school it is clearly a breach of trust and is unacceptable."