‘Deviant’ private school teacher, 60, kissed girl of 15 on the lips and asked her to marry him

A MARRIED science teacher at a private school kissed and molested a 15year-old pupil during one-to-one lessons to prepare her for her GCSE exams.

Stephen Wyatt, 60, a teacher at the £7,500-a-year St Annes College Grammar School in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, groomed the teenager by offering her a ‘sneak preview’ of her physics paper and extra classes alone.

He became besotted with the girl and bombarded her with more than 1,000 inappropriate text messages and e-mails, Preston Crown Court heard.

In lengthy exchanges, the grandfather described the girl as ‘ gorgeous and sexy’, and joked about her not wearing any knickers to school. Eventually he persuaded the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to kiss him on the lips in his classroom, and he became so smitten that he asked her to marry him.

Wyatt also kept an online diary of their liaisons, which revealed that the pair had enjoyed ‘ horizontal hugs’, ‘exploring’ and had talked about having intercourse, although there was no evidence they had sex.

They also had romantic meetings at the seaside resort’s beach, where they watched the sunset.

In one diary entry, Wyatt wrote: ‘She came to see me at break time and we cuddled and kissed. She didn’t object to going to bed with me and she has now changed her views on our kissing. She loves our kisses.’

The relationship went undiscovered for nearly two years before her mother found the emails on her computer and alerted the school last year.

Wyatt immediately confessed, but begged the school’s deputy head not to tell the police. He told the girl he would kill himself if he was sent to jail.

Earlier this week, Wyatt narrowly avoided a prison sentence after admitting three counts of sexual touching while in a position of trust. Judge Robert Althman said his conduct warranted jail, but, after hearing he had already spent more than two months on remand, agreed to suspend the 36-week prison term for two years.

He told Wyatt he had ‘masqueraded as someone with her [the girl’s] best interests at heart’. The judge added: ‘The digital evidence is littered with wholly inappropriate and sexual suggestions. There was joking about her going to school without her knickers and there was a conversation about her having forgotten her knickers.

‘There was a gradual pushing back of boundaries in order to groom her for sexual conduct. This is not pure folly or infatuation.’

The court was told that Wyatt was even warned by his wife of 33 years, Susan, 57, who was also a teacher at the school, that the girl had a crush on him. But he continued the ‘ misguided and deviant’ contact, the judge said.

It is understood that Mrs Wyatt has now left him. Janet Ironfield, defending, said Wyatt, of Blackpool, still believed that he was in love with the girl. He has lost his reputation, career and wife because of his conduct.

‘Mr Wyatt is struggling to give up the belief this was a genuine, affectionate relationship which would end in a long-term relationship developing in the ordinary way with marriage,’ Miss Ironfield added.

Wyatt was ordered to carry out 30 days rehabilitation activity, 120 hours of unpaid work and to sign the sex offenders register for ten years. He was banned from making contact with his victim.

‘A pushing back of boundaries’