Headlands School in Bridlington, Yorkshire has the highest rate of teacher-student sexual encounters in, we're guessing, the first world.
On Friday, British police charged a staff member, which sounds wrong, with having sex with a teenage girl, bringing the grand total of arrests to...
FIVE.
Five teachers or staff members at Headlands High have been charged in less than three years. Here's a breakdown of how the endless scandals have all played out:
Three years ago, an art instructor by the name of Ian Blott (man, these stories can't be real, can they?) received a blot on his record and four years in prison for forcing himself on a teenage girl. The girl claimed that she was traumatized from the encounter and left with bulimia and other medical problems.
In 2007, Steven Edwards, until then a science teacher, was convicted of having sex with three students (their genders not identified here) and is now serving a five-year sentence. The abuse/relationships occurred over the course of four years, but only came to light after Blott's trial.
Even after two such cases in as many years, school officials did nothing to or were unable to stop the tidal wave: two more teachers were arrested last year. Terry Mann, a teacher, had sex with a student from another school and somehow managed to escape with a suspended sentence, possibly because he plead guilty and admitted everything immediately. One of his colleagues, a teacher's assistant, also received a slap on the wrist for carrying on a long-term relationship with a boy at school.
Again, the school did nothing to successfully control its staff.
The fifth case came to light last week, when Chris Reen, who works as a substitute or fill-in at the school (what, the janitors are getting in on this, too?), was arrested for seven sexual encounters with a girl throughout the end of 2008. Parents were understandably outraged, since the school is apparently on probation for failing to properly protect and educate its charges. This is about as solid a case for homeschooling as any...
By the way, according to this story, Reen is "a newlywed." Wow, way to bring shame to your family, dude.
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