[Ammi]

A teacher who had sex with a 16-year-old pupil was spared jail yesterday because a judge said the girl had groomed him.

Stuart Kerner took the child’s virginity in a school store cupboard and later had intercourse with her at his home when his wife was out.

But yesterday the 44-year-old was given only an 18-month suspended sentence after the judge indicated her sympathy for him.

'There is no evidence that you groomed her,’ said Judge Joanna Greenberg QC. ‘It was she who groomed you and you gave into temptation when you were vulnerable.’

Her decision sparked public complaints and the Attorney General’s office last night announced the sentence will be examined to see whether it is too lenient

John Carr, a leading Government adviser on online child safety, described the judge’s actions as bizarre.

‘I haven’t seen all the evidence the judge did but I doubt I will be alone in finding her remarks utterly baffling,’ he said.

‘How can a 44-year-old man be seduced by a minor who is in his care?’

Holly Dustin, of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: ‘Judge Greenberg’s reported comments in sentencing Stuart Kerner are astonishing in that they literally blame the young victim for his actions.

‘This case shows how such deeply held prejudicial attitudes permeate the criminal justice system at all levels and raises serious questions about the adequacy of judicial training on sexual violence.’

A spokesman for the Attorney General’s office said: ‘The office will now ask prosecutors to send us more information on this case, so that one of the law officers can decide whether the sentence should be referred to the Court of Appeal for review.’


During his trial at Inner London Crown Court last month, Kerner claimed the girl had invented their relationship, taking the novel Fifty Shades of Grey as a model.

But the former vice-principal of Bexleyheath Academy in south-east London was convicted of two counts of sexual activity with a child while holding a position of trust.

Jurors were told Kerner, who taught RE and ethics, took to carrying around a condom for use if the girl became ‘too irresistible’. On the day in February 2012 that they first had sex they met in the store cupboard and barricaded it shut with a chair

That October, Kerner arranged for the girl to come to his house and they had sex before he dropped her home. He was arrested three months later. The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had told a teacher about their affair after her parents found sexually explicit material on her phone.

Interviewed by police, the girl, who is now 19, said: ‘It felt special. But, I dunno, it wasn’t really. And admitting that does kind of hurt.’

Judge Greenberg described the victim as intelligent and manipulative and said the jury had not judged her a reliable witness.

She said the girl had persuaded the school to give her free meals by falsely claiming her mother would not give her lunch money.

The teenager also claimed to have been in a car crash and wore bandages for weeks before teachers discovered she was lying.

When confronted, she allegedly said: ‘That’s what I do – I lie.’

The judge said Kerner had been in a position of ‘emotional instability’ when they first had sex because his wife had just had a miscarriage.

She added: ‘The victim pursued you and had formed an attachment for you which was not something you had encouraged. Her friends described her, accurately in my view, as stalking you. There is no doubt that she was obsessed with you. An obsession that she had harboured for a long time.

‘I saw no sign that you had encouraged [the victim] in any way. Were it not for her obsession with you, the offence would never have occurred.It’s a tragedy that somebody like you committed offences of this nature and now fall to be sentenced.’

But she added: ‘You are the responsible adult and it is up to you to show restraint.'

Protesting his innocence, Kerner had said the girl was a pathological liar and fantasist who had followed him around ‘like a bad smell’.

He claimed she had been able to describe his house accurately because she had seen pictures of it on his Apple iPad. And he said she knew what underwear he wore because he had once changed for a panto and left his clothes on view.

Edward Ellis, mitigating, said Kerner’s relationship with his ‘devoted’ wife Katharine had become stronger. He said the teacher collapsed following his conviction by a majority of jurors and had considered suicide.

Kerner, from Aylesford in Kent, was cleared of other counts of sexual activity. He has been banned for life from working with children and will have to sign the sex offender register indefinitely. His teaching contract was terminated in October.

Another campaigner, Jan Macleod of the Women’s Support Project, described his suspended sentence as shocking. ‘What it says to me is that there’s a real lack of understanding about the nature of grooming,’ she added. ‘Grooming is all about power dynamics.

‘In any case, the teacher definitely has a responsibility to say “No”, no matter how eager the child is. The criminal justice system needs to look more at the impact of this kind of thing – it involves a huge breach of trust.’



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