‘SHE PULLED DOWN HIS TROUSERS AS HE PLAYED COMPUTER GAMES’ Court told nursery worker had sex with lad, 13

DENIAL: Cordice

A MARRIED children’s nursery worker had sex with a lad aged 13 – and had his baby, a court has heard.

Leah Cordice, 20, is said to have gone to the schoolboy’s home, walked into his bedroom where he was playing computer games, and pulled down his trousers.

The sex that allegedly followed sparked more intercourse with the teen – said to have happened on average twice a month, right through Cordice’s pregnancy and continued after she gave birth to a baby girl.

Her husband, the jury was told, believed the child was his, but a later DNA test showed the schoolboy was actually the father.

Cordice, who had kept the sexual relationship with the boy a secret, was studying child care while working at a local nursery.

She denies five counts of having sexual activity with a child – three of which were said to have taken lace while she was 17 and two while she was 18.

Prosecutors told how the boy, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had later said to police in interview: “You are supposed to have sex and, like, love each other. It was just like, she just wanted to do it.

“Now I feel like she did not really care about me.”

The jury heard how the woman, then aged 17, had gone to the boy’s house drunk in January 2017 and pulled his trousers down while he was playing computer games.

At Reading Crown Court, prosecutor Grace Ong said: “This case concerns the defendant having a sexual relationship with a child.

“Matters only came to the attention of the local authority in the course of family proceedings in relation to Ms Cordice’s child.

“DNA testing revealed that her child is the complainant’s biological daughter.”

Cordice and the boy had continued having unprotected sex on a regular basis, roughly twice a month, until the start of 2018, the court heard – a few weeks before the boy, who had turned 14, was quizzed by the police.

Ms Ong added: “The boy said that he and Ms Cordice started having sexual intercourse when he was 13-years-old.

“Ms Cordice was drunk, she went around to his address, she went into his bedroom and at first, they talked normally and he carried on playing on his Xbox and watching YouTube.

“Ms Cordice then sat on his bed and started to hug him and kiss him and it carried on.

“He said, ‘I could not really say no. She would have kept asking and asking me to have sex’.

“Afterwards, he felt that it was a bit weird and that she did not say anything to him.”

The boy had been the first person who Cordice told that she was pregnant, the jury heard, and she had shown him an app on her phone which suggested the date she had conceived was the first time they’d had sex.

While they carried on having sex, Cordice had married her long-term partner and had given birth.

In a police interview video shown to the jury, the boy complainant told of how Cordice’s husband had found out about her relationship with him.

The boy told investigators: “Her boyfriend found out. He did not really say anything. He got angry at first. He started shouting at me. Then he didn’t say anything to me.

“She spoke about him to me sometimes – just how he’d been accusing her of stuff.”

The prosecutor told how Cordice had been forced into taking a DNA test which showed that the 13-year-old boy was her baby’s real dad after social services became involved, once the boy’s mother called the police.

Cordice was arrested at her home in Windsor, Berks, in July 2018 and later interviewed under caution.

The jury heard she had provided a prepared statement, saying: “I deny any sexual contact with the complainant.

“He has always had a crush on me and he’d make inappropriate remarks and do inappropriate things, such as grab me.”

Despite DNA evidence to the contrary, she said: “The complainant is not the father of my child.”

Ms Ong told the jury: “She may say she was raped by the boy. The prosecution’s case is this claim of rape is a lie.”

The trial continues.