Teacher charged with abusing two boys ‘a master of deceit’, court told
A TEACHER accused of engaging in sexual activity with two schoolboys was ‘hiding in plain sight’ and used her position to abuse the youngsters, a jury has been told.
Carol Ann White, 39, is alleged to have been intimate with the boys while employed at two Lanarkshire primary schools.
The mother of two has pleaded not guilty to two separate charges of engaging in sexual activity with the boys spanning August 2018 to May 2020 and is on trial at Airdrie Sheriff Court.
Depute fiscal Kevin Jarvis urged jurors to convict White.
He said the boys ‘experienced a side of Carol Ann White that she kept hidden from other adults.
‘She was a teacher hiding in plain sight as she moved from one school to the next. By day she was a respectable teacher, by night she was discussing sexual innuendos with a 12-year-old pupil. She was the master of deceit.’
Graham Robertson, defence advocate, said: ‘At no stage did she seek to gain any sort of sexual gratification from these two young lads and carried out no sort of sexual activity with them.’ The court had earlier heard White, who no longer works in education, deny she had engaged in any sexual behaviour with the boys.
Of the allegations against her, White, of Uddingston, Lanarkshire, wept as she said: ‘They are absolutely not true, not any of it.’
The trial heard a 12-year-old boy, who has special educational needs, claim she forced him to put his hand down her trousers.
Jurors also heard a forensic search of phones belonging to White and the 12-year-old boy revealed 1,185 messages had been sent between them where she called the schoolboy ‘handsome’, ‘gorgeous’ and ‘sweetheart’.
It is alleged she kissed another boy, 11, in a store cupboard.
The alleged offences are said to have happened in two schools, the Time Capsule in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, an activity centre in Argyll and at White’s home. The jury is out to consider its verdict.