Groomed pupil ‘does not regret’ affair

A schoolgirl who was groomed and abducted by her Aberdeenshire-born maths teacher has said she does not regret the “dangerous infatuation”.

The girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was groomed by married teacher Jeremy Forrest when she was 15.

Forrest, who was 31 at the time, was jailed for fiveand-a-half years in June 2013 for child abduction and five charges of sexual activity with a child.

The pair ran away to Bordeaux, France, in September 2012.

The girl, now 19, said she had spoken to Forrest since his release from prison via Facebook, and that he sounded “the same and, importantly, happy”.

She added: “Of course we knew it was illegal for us to be together, but we genuinely believed that if we stuck it out for a tricky few years, eventually we could return home and people would accept our relationship.”

The victim said she lived in “constant fear” of being discovered, adding that teachers at the Bishop Bell school in Eastbourne began to suspect something was going on.

When the police became aware the pair were exchanging texts, Forrest drove the pair to Dover, where they boarded a ferry for France.