No, judge, a teenage girl CAN’T groom her teacher

Welcome to this week’s morality tale, involving a teacher, his wife, a schoolgirl lover and a judge. Spoiler alert — no one comes out of it very well. We begin with a married teacher called Stuart Kerner, who has an affair with a 16year-old pupil in his care. She is a virgin when they first have sex on a yoga mat in a cleaning cupboard at the school in Bexleyheath, Kent.

No, this sordid coupling is hardly the stuff of heady romance, but he does bring along the condoms and a blanket; how thoughtful, how kind.

He also has sex with her at home while his wife is at work, the brute. Their relationship develops into an 18-month affair, which of course half the school seems to know about. Hardly surprising that he ends up in court and is found guilty on charges of sexual activity with a child by an adult in a position of trust.

That sounds heinous — and it is. Yet in an extraordinary verdict this week, a woman judge blamed the pupil, not the teacher, for what happened.

Judge Joanna Greenberg decided that 44-year-old religious studies master Kerner was ‘emotionally fragile’ at the time, due to the fact that his wife had miscarried their second child. It was the pupil who was primarily at fault, a girl who was ‘obsessed’ and ‘besotted’ with him. It was she who had ‘groomed’ the teacher, the judge decided, not the other way around.

‘Her friends described her, accurately in my view, as stalking you. If grooming is the right word to use, it was she who groomed you, [and] you gave in to temptation,’ said the judge, giving Kerner a suspended sentence and a flirty wink from the bench.

Well, of course she did no such thing, winkwise. However, her remarks about the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and her focus on her shortcomings and his ‘exemplary’ character are astonishing.

Teenage girls can be monsters, and this one was clearly no saint, but miss X was not the culprit here, she was the victim. In what seedy realm is it ever acceptable for a troubled adult teacher to console himself in the arms of a pupil? even one who bewitched him? None.

adolescent girls boil with hormones and nascent sexual longings they don’t entirely understand. many are naïve and silly, some are cunning and manipulative, all have great waves of puppy love searching for a friendly shore to crash upon.

US uallY their innocent target is someone in a boyband or perhaps zac efron. Sometimes, yes, it is a teacher; a person with a position of power and authority within the school hierarchy that is attractive to them.

For the teacher, it is the very business of teaching that is the route to seduction. as they are the ones in the position of responsibility, they should never take advantage of this. and if they do, they shouldn’t have their behaviour excused by a judge. Pupils are off-limits, end of — as the kids themselves might say.

campaigners against child abuse are in a fury with Judge Greenberg, claiming that her verdict sends out the wrong message to abusers. especially as it is patently clear that whatever happened, Kerner violated the sacred teacher-pupil relationship.

What I don’t understand is why a judge — a woman judge in particular — would conclude that a girl who was only 15 when she first became close to the teacher must shoulder some of the culpability for what happened. even at a time when children are sexualised to a distressing extent, how can the grooming blame be hers?

miss Greenberg became a judge only last year. on the biography page of her former chambers, an entry which appears to be self-penned reads as follows: ‘Joanna had 40 years’ experience as a barrister, though looking at her you simply would not believe that she could have been in practice that long!’ objection, your honour. The blurb, more like a lonely hearts advert than a legal profile, goes on to point out that you ‘ cross her at your peril’ and that ‘Joanna enjoys skiing; scuba diving; travelling to far off places and why not?’

Why not indeed? She is also keen to be in the spotlight, having appeared on two multipart BBc murder and rape trial reconstructions.

Well, Judge Greenberg is certainly going to get lots of publicity this week, only perhaps not the kind she craves — there is to be an official investigation into her ‘grooming’ comments.

YeT following an outcry over her judgment, the attorney General’s office has said that Kerner’s suspended sentence cannot be reviewed for being too soft as it does not fall under the unduly lenient sentence scheme.

Surely such lenient sentencing is wildly out of kilter with public expectation of these cases. Particularly one such as this, which was no moment of madness, but which lasted for well over a year. even if we accept that miss X was trouble, a known liar who once pretended to have been in a car crash to get off gym. even if we sympathise with Kerner, whose wife is standing by him despite his transgressions and ruined career.

Now, he is appealing against his conviction. Good luck with that. To my mind his is no mere error of judgment, but a morally negligent act.

The truth is that hardly a week seems to go by in this country without another teacher/ pupil sex scandal erupting in the classroom. Parents have the right to expect that their children will go to school without being molested by teachers, no matter what kind of difficult, emotional time Sir might be going through.

and also they should expect that if teachers do have sex with vulnerable youngsters in their charge, they will be punished appropriately for doing so. and why not, as Judge Greenberg might say?