Mother f inds sex case teacher, 35, in divan drawer of daughter’s bed
A TEACHER was caught having an affair with a pupil when the girl’s mother found him hiding under her bed. Andrew Welsh, who was 35 at the time, climbed into a drawer in the 16-year-old’s single divan bed after her mother returned home early.
But the mother became suspicious when she saw that her daughter’s hair and make-up were out of place.
She went into the bedroom, noticed ‘movement’ in the drawer and ordered him to get out from under the bed.
Yesterday, Welsh, who is married, was sentenced to 14 months in prison, suspended for two years, after admitting six counts of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust.
Bolton Crown Court heard there had been sexual activity between the maths teacher and the Year 11 pupil six times between May and July last year.
It happened at her house, at the home he shared with his wife and son, now three, and in his car in a Sainsbury’s car park.
The pair had ‘full sex’ once at the girl’s home the day before they were discovered.
Welsh sent the girl dozens of explicit texts, including one that said: ‘Have you heard about today’s maths lesson? I’m going to figure out if 35 goes into 16.’
In others he called her a ‘minx’ and said she was ‘talented in bed’.
Geoff Whelan, prosecuting, said Welsh, who turned 36 yesterday, was not teaching the girl at the time of the offences.
She had been meeting him in school for advice about depression for about three months before he invited her to his house to look at his art and they kissed, the court heard.
Mr Whelan said the affair was discovered on July 19 when the girl’s mother pushed open her daughter’s bedroom door and saw a man’s suit jacket and a pair of man’s shoes.
She then saw that a sheet was folded back and could see movement in the divan drawer and material inside that matched the suit jacket.
When she demanded to know who was there, her daughter replied, ‘Mr Welsh.’ Mr Whelan added: ‘ The mother ordered the defendant to get out from under the bed and she recognised him immediately as her daughter’s maths teacher from the school.’
The mother called the school and police and Welsh was arrested later that day. He told police that the sex was consensual, the girl was 16 and he did not believe she was a pupil at the time because she had finished her GCSE exams.
Welsh tried to get the charges relating to the abuse of a position of trust thrown out for the same reason, but changed his plea to guilty when his application was rejected.
Mr Whelan said the girl now ‘worries about whispers and gossip’ but is otherwise ‘ coping very well’, but her
‘He became utterly carried away’
mother ‘feels betrayed’. Nicola Gatto, defending, said Welsh, a St Andrews University graduate, was a man of ‘ extremely good character’ with a seven-year ‘unblemished history’ at the school, where he was assistant head of Year Ten.
She said his wife, a GP, described him as a ‘fundamentally good person’ and had decided to stand by him, but the affair had been ‘utterly mortifying’ for her.
Welsh is banned from teaching for life and now works as a window salesman, she said. Miss Gatto added: ‘He’s lost his standing in the community, he’s lost his good character and he’s lost the career he loved.
‘Quite what possessed him to embark on this course of conduct is really unclear. He was flattered by the attention that this young woman gave him. It seems that he became utterly carried away with himself.
‘He now is going to bear the cost for that because effectively he has ruined his life. It is going to take many years for this man to piece his life back together again.’
Judge Elliot Knopf told Welsh that the girl was ‘impressionable’ and he could not attribute the affair to a ‘moment of madness’ because it went on for ‘a good number of weeks’.
He added: ‘You bear responsibility for what happened. You are nearly 20 years older than this girl.
‘You allowed yourself to indulge in this behaviour and this activity in this relationship. You allowed yourself to get carried away.’
As well as the suspended prison sentence, Welsh, from Atherton, Greater Manchester, was ordered to do 200 hours of community service and pay £500 prosecution costs.
He was also put on the sex offenders register for ten years.