Judge: Teacher’s sex with schoolgirl was shabby but not illegal
A JUDGE said that a teacher who had sex with a 17-year-old did not commit an offence.
Bryan Schalch, 39, was said to have behaved in an ‘immoral and shabby’ way.
But he was not guilty of a crime, the judge said, because the girl – who was a friend of one of his pupils – studied at a different school.
Mr Schalch, a house master at the £14,964-a-year Warwick School, kissed the girl in clandestine meetings in a supermarket car park.
Eventually he invited her back to his £480,000 home where they had sex on three occasions.
The relationship ended when Mr Schalch refused to leave his wife for his teenage mistress.
The teacher denied three counts of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust at Warwick Crown Court.
He was cleared on Thursday when a judge directed the jury to enter not guilty verdicts on all three charges. Judge David Griffith-Jones QC said: ‘There is no issue but that the person named is 17, and that Bryan Schalch was a teacher ... It is important that I ensure the correct focus is on criminal behaviour, as opposed to shabby or immoral behaviour by the defendant.’
Prosecutor Sally Hancox told the court Mr Schalch met the girl through a friend of hers who was a pupil at Warwick School.
She was a pupil at King’s High School, an all-girls independent school in Warwick. The £12,477-ayear school caters for 600 girls aged 11-18.
It is part of the same foundation as Warwick School, often sharing teachers and resources.
The 17- year- old schoolgirl’s parents later employed him as a private tutor.
They stayed in touch after the arrangement finished, and Mr Schalch met the schoolgirl in a Sainsbury’s car park before taking her to his home for sex sessions.
The girl, who gave video-recorded evidence, said she ‘had a teenage crush thing’. She told the court that the schoolteacher had sex with her three times, but because the Sexual Offences Act only covers teachers who have intimate relationships with their pupils in school, Mr Schalch was not found to have committed a crime.
Rachel Brand QC, defending, said: ‘The whole purpose of this Act is to ensure that pupils at a school are not abused by people at the school they attend.’