Sex on a plane? It sounds like weird porn film
...and I was in hiking boots anyway, teacher told police after pupil’s allegations
‘They’re good at imagining stuff’
A TEACHER accused of having sex with a 16-year-old pupil in an aircraft toilet dismissed the claim as a schoolboy’s fantasy that ‘sounds like a weird porn film’, a court heard yesterday.
Giving evidence for the first time, Eleanor Wilson, 29, said there was ‘no truth whatsoever’ in allegations that she had sex with the boy on the flight home from a school trip to Swaziland.
She also said she had been wearing black jeans and heavy, size 10 hiking boots laced to the ankle, which would have been hard to remove for sex in the cramped confines of the cubicle. The former physics teacher is accused of fondling the pupil before luring him into a lavatory on the British Airways flight in August 2015. They are said to have had unprotected sex which led to her becoming pregnant and having an abortion behind her then-boyfriend’s back.
Wilson denied the claims yesterday, describing them as a figment of the boy’s imagination.
She told jurors she spent a lot of the 11-hour flight looking after pupils who were in and out of the lavatory suffering from food poisoning. She said she dozed and watched two films – Cinderella and Ex Machina – and drank a mini bottle of red wine and a can of gin and tonic.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had earlier told Bristol Crown Court that she kissed him on the lips before sliding her hand down his boxer shorts.
But Wilson said she did not touch the pupil once during the flight, although she said they had briefly chatted about how much they were looking forward to getting home.
In her police interview, she said she was ‘horrified’ by the allegations, adding: ‘ The amount of detail has come from his imagination and I don’t know why he was saying that. They are very good at imagining stuff and thinking of... it sounds like some weird porn film.’
Wilson was head of key stage four at her Bristol secondary school and was one of a handful of teachers who accompanied 18 pupils on the trip.
Wilson said she had consoled her alleged victim during the trip when he became upset about the state of his relationship with his girlfriend, but she denied acting in a flirtatious way.
The teacher is accused of having sexual contact with the boy on three other occasions after the Swaziland trip – once in his bedroom after lunch at a Nando’s restaurant, and again on day trips to Tintern Abbey, in Monmouthshire, and Ashton Court Estate, in Bristol.
Wilson admitted meeting up with the youngster on those occasions and texting him ‘almost daily’ over the summer, but said it was because she had ‘no one else to turn to’.
Wilson said that during their day trips they would discuss the pupil’s troubles, including difficulties with his girlfriend and an exam re-sit. She told the court: ‘Tintern Abbey was his idea – his parents knew about it – we had a little walk by the river and went to a pub for lunch. Then we sat on the grass and chatted for a bit. There was no kissing.’
She became emotional as she described how her boyfriend at the time, Andrew Hall, was controlling and allegedly abusive towards her. ‘I didn’t want to be in the same room as him,’ she said. ‘We didn’t share same bedrooms after an argument. We had intercourse, but rarely. It was a horrible relationship. After we moved to Bristol, he was very controlling.’ Wilson admitted giving the pupil her mobile phone number, and they exchanged more than 300 calls, texts and voicemails.
On one occasion, she called the teenager from Italy after an argument with her boyfriend. She told jurors: ‘I called him because I didn’t have anyone else. He knew my relationship with Andy wasn’t great... I knew he wouldn’t judge me.’
Wilson, of Dursley, Gloucestershire, denies four charges of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust. The trial continues.