EX COV TEACHING ASSISTANT JAILED FOR TAKING ADVANTAGE OF PUPIL

AN ex Coventry teaching assistant has been jailed for two years and eight months after she took advantage of a 15-year-old pupil to ‘satisfy’ her sexual needs.

That is what Recorder Martin Butterworth said when he sentenced Kellie Smith from Nuneaton to the prison term.

Warwick Crown Court heard that Smith “bought (her victim) sweets” before having sex with him twice in a Nuneaton hotel room in March last year.

The 28-year-old from Nuneaton, who had been a teaching assistant since March 2016, had also given the boy vodka and cans of Stella Artois lager and smoked cannabis with him in her car.

Smith then took her victim to the hotel, checking in in the early hours of the morning.

The defendant did not turn up for work the following morning, having left the hotel around six hours later.

When she was arrested, Smith tested positive for cocaine and admitted possession of the substance at an earlier court hearing.

On Tuesday, she pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual activity with a child and she went on to sob throughout the hearing - occasionally dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

Recorder Martin Butterworth told Smith the fact her victim consented “makes no difference at all”.

He said: “It is clear he caught your eye and there was grooming behaviour from you towards him.

“The fact that it is accepted by the prosecution that he consented in the sense that you were not abusing him against his will makes no difference at all.

“You were taking advantage of a vulnerable child to satisfy your own sexual needs.

“Over many hours, in fact, you groomed him with a trip in the car, you provided him with alcohol and you were treating him as if he was a potential partner.

“Whatever his attitude was towards you, it could not be trusted because he was a child.”

The court heard that Smith bought the youngster cannabis, cocaine and booze before bedding him in the early hours of March 29 last year. The teaching assistant, who taught at the school for three years, was suspended and later sacked over the sex claims.

She was arrested after the schoolboy’s DNA was found on her underwear and CCTV showed her and the boy together at the hotel in Nuneaton.

The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted having consensual sex with Smith on two occasions and that he thought she was “fit”.

On Tuesday, Smith pleaded guilty to two offences of sexual activity with a child under 16 at the Leamington-based court.