Behind bars, teaching assistant, 30, who groomed boy half her age
A TEACHING assistant who had sex with a teenage boy half her age was jailed yesterday after judges ruled her suspended sentence was too lenient.
Caroline Berriman, 30, seduced the 15year-old after she gave him one-to-one tuition at school, and slept with him 80 times in just three or four months.
She pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child, but a judge controversially spared her from jail last month, instead giving her a two-year suspended sentence and ordering her to carry out 250 hours’ community service.
Her victim, who said he felt ‘scarred’ by being groomed, described the decision as ‘disgusting’. Robert Buckland QC, the Solicitor General, agreed it was ‘unduly lenient’ and lodged a complaint. Yesterday Appeal Court judges backed him, imposing a two-year prison sentence after saying the trial judge had failed to take into account the ‘gravity’ of her offence or the harm done to her victim.
Berriman was not in court to hear the verdict but was ordered to report to a police station last night to be taken to jail. She had groomed the boy while working at the 1,600-pupil Abraham Moss Community School in North Manchester, from which she was suspended.
The court heard they had regular sex sessions at her home and even lived together for three weeks, during which they regarded themselves as ‘ordinary lovers’. Berriman made her two-year-old daughter call the boy ‘Dad’ and became pregnant by him, but had a termination.
Police were called after he had suicidal feelings and contacted ChildLine.
Jailing her yesterday, Lord Justice Treacy said Berriman, of Chadderton in Greater Manchester, had known from the start that the affair was ‘entirely wrong’.
Mr Buckland said he was pleased by the verdict, adding that it should ‘reassure the public and send out a strong message that teenagers of both genders have a legal right to be protected from grooming’.
Arrangements have been put in place for her daughter to be looked after while she serves her sentence. She must also obey a restraining order barring her from contacting the boy, who has since left school and cannot be named for legal reasons.
‘She knew it was entirely wrong’