Downfall of blonde divorcee cleared of seducing boy, 15
Weeping in court, teacher who even called herself a ‘slut’
A TEACHER who faced up to 14 years behind bars after being accused of having sex with a teenager when he was at school wept yesterday as she was cleared on all counts.
Deborah Lowe, 54, had faced professional ruin after the suspected drug dealer claimed their relationship – during which she sent him a card signing herself ‘the slut’ – began when he was 15.
The allegation that she had underage sex with the boy was thrown out, but the divorced mother of two – who blamed the fling on a ‘midlife crisis’ – still faced a lengthy prison sentence after prosecutors claimed the pair had sex when he was still a pupil at her school.
The court heard that the teacher’s transformation from a middle- class divorcee who hadn’t had sex for nine years into a woman sleeping with a toyboy lover 35 years her junior came after she suffered a head injury while on holiday in Bali in 2016. After 13 years working at a busy high school, Mrs Lowe had started to become disillusioned with her role as head of year responsible for pastoral care because she was struggling to cope with the paperwork.
She began planning a sabbatical the following year, and sold her flat to fund her travels and ‘explore her faith’.
In April 2016, she went on a two-week on holiday to Bali, meeting up with her daughter Charlotte, 28. But during the trip, Mrs Lowe was involved in a motorbike accident and suffered a head injury.
On her return to Britain, she collapsed. Tests revealed she had suffered a small stroke, which doctors attributed to the accident, and as she tried to rebuild her life, a close relationship with the troublesome former pupil deepened into romance.
As head of year, Mrs Lowe was expected to intervene with pupils at risk of being sucked into crime or sexual abuse, fatefully encountering the boy with whom she would have the fling.
After he left school, they kept in touch, and Mrs Lowe – who told the court that she hadn’t had sex for nine years – admitted that their online conversations became ‘flirtier’. During the trial, Mrs Cleared: Teacher Deborah Lowe Lowe’s barrister Neil Usher said the youth was an ‘attention-seeking fantasist’ who exploited her infatuation to dupe her into giving him money to cover his alleged drug debts, and lied about when the relationship began.
Asked by Mr Usher if he was a drug dealer, the youth made no comment after being told by the judge he did not have to answer a question if he thought it might incriminate him.
The court was told he had received a police caution for possessing cocaine.
After the youth left school, they kept in touch, and Mrs Lowe admitted that their online conversations became ‘flirtier’. The jury at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard that during a WhatsApp conversation in October 2016 – after the boy had left school – Mrs Lowe made a crude joke in response to a friend’s quip. When her friend wrote that ‘we can’t all have a 17-year to shag’, Mrs Lowe replied: ‘ Can I just say for the minute I am not shagging him and I am merely a mother figure.
‘However, if not in the too distant future he wants to discuss the merits of an older woman, I will be there for him.’
Mrs Lowe told the jury they slept together in December 2016 at her flat in Bramhall, Stockport, when he was 17.
Asked by Mr Usher how she now felt, she said: ‘I am mortified. I am embarrassed.
‘ I think I was having some sort of midlife crisis. I don’t know why I did it. I am so ashamed.’
Police were called after the boy’s mother found a card Mrs Lowe sent to him, saying: ‘Who else can I be a slut with?’
The boy told police he was 15 when they slept together, adding ‘it’s like every lad’s fantasy, isn’t it, to have sex with a teacher?’
Mr Usher said he had used Mrs Lowe to help pay off his drug debts, highlighting an incident when she took him for a tattoo, claiming he was her nephew.
The youth had messaged the tattooists in advance asking them to charge her £600 for a £400 tattoo and let him pocket the difference.
After the boy’s cross-examination, the prosecution offered no evidence on the most serious count of sexual activity with a child. But Mrs Lowe still faced five counts of sexual activity with a child by a
‘I don’t know why I did it’
person in a position of trust. Mr Usher told jurors they had to weigh up the word of a woman who had never before been accused of a crime with that of ‘a small-time drug dealer, a cocaine abuser’.
Wiping away tears after being acquitted by a jury, which deliberated for barely two hours, Mrs Lowe hit out at the ‘flaws’ in the case.
The teacher added that the past nine months had been ‘extremely difficult for me and my family’, and thanked friends and colleagues for their support.
She said she wanted to ‘put this case behind me as best I can and spend some time with my family and friends’.
Mrs Lowe married her flight dispatcher husband Garry at the age of 26 in 1990 and they had two children.
The couple later divorced and Mr Lowe has since remarried.
Last night the CPS said: ‘The decision to charge was made following detailed consideration of the evidence.’