A teaching assistant had unprotected sex with five teenage boys in her care and sent them pictures of herself playing with sex toys.
Married Emma Webb, 42, performed sex acts on the pupils – aged 15 to 17 – during free period and detention at the Berkshire school.
She groomed them by taking them out for meals at Kentucky Fried Chicken and giving them lifts to school, Reading Crown Court heard.
The supply teacher and mentor, who admitted a total of 30 charges relating to the offences involving five boys at the secondary school, even joked with one boy about having his baby.
Sentencing the tearful teacher to 32 months in jail, Judge John Reddihough said: ‘All of these offences involved serious breaches of trust that was placed in you as a study supervisor at the school in question.
‘You were expected to support and assist the five boys concerned and you were a mentor to at least two of them.
‘Instead you undoubtedly groomed them for sexual purposes by buying them food and presents, inviting them to your home and driving them to and from school.’
The first youngster to catch the eye of the mother of two was a 15-year-old, who she would question about his sexual experiences. The pair were so close they drew the attention of fellow pupils.
‘Others were saying they should get a bed in the classroom, it appeared she enjoyed that jest,’ said Simon Heptonstall, prosecuting. ‘She said she liked his bum and squeezed it.
‘She continued sexual texting when her husband was not around and texted him saying, “fancy a play?”.’
The court heard that Webb told the boy if he told anyone about the texts she would lose her job and that her plumber husband Andy ‘had a history of violence’, so the youngster would ‘end up with no kneecaps.’
Webb started asking the boy to visit her and said he was ‘a special boy’, said Mr Heptonstall.
Webb then moved on to another student, aged 16. After taking him to KFC with a group of boys in his year, Webb started texting him and asking him to go to her home for sex.
When the boy obliged, Webb performed a sex act on him, saying ‘we shouldn’t be doing this’ before he left following a call from his mother.
On another visit during one of his free periods, she again performed a sex act. The pair then began to meet up around twice a week for sex when he was not in lessons.
‘There was never any use of contraception,’ said Mr Heptonstall.
The third boy was sent to the school’s intervention room, where Webb lifted up her skirt and told him to touch her sexually, which he did until the school bell sounded 10 or 15 minutes later.
She told him not to tell anyone, and followed that up by sending him explicit photographs by mobile, the court heard.
On another occasion she asked the boy to walk her dog with her and had sex with him on her staircase, in what the court was told was the teenager’s first sexual experience.
Webb had shown the fourth boy explicit photographs of herself using sex toys after he was sent to the intervention room for misbehaving.
‘He was caught drawing a penis when he was doodling in class,’ said Mr Heptonstall. ‘She bluntly asked to see his.’
The pair later went on to have unprotected sexual intercourse, prompting Webb to say to the boy ‘imagine if we had black babies now’.
Webb also gave the fifth boy lifts to school, and the court heard she made him feel ‘as though he was the only one who cared for her.’
At a school prom, the pair posed for photographs where Webb had her feather boa draped over him, which the boy’s mother described as featuring them as ‘looking like a couple’.
‘She referred to him as her baby and said she loved him,’ said Mr Heptonstall. ‘He would walk the dog with her regularly, two or three times a week, and on one occasion they would go to her house.’
Webb was suspended from the school, which cannot be identified for legal reasons, and investigated after another teacher saw a message from the boy where he told Webb that he loved her.
The court was told that Webb initially denied that anything untoward had happened, but admitted that she was a tactile person.
Webb, who held her head in her hands as the details of her offences were read out, looked tired and red-eyed as she sat in the dock, dressed in a grey striped top.
She admitted to 16 counts relating to sex with three of the boys at an earlier court hearing, and to a further 14 charges relating to the other two boys prior to her sentencing hearing today.
The teacher admitted four counts of causing or inciting sexual activity with a child and six counts of causing or inciting sexual activity with a child by a position of trust.
She also pleaded guilty to three counts of causing a child to watch a sex act by viewing a sexual image, one count of sexual activity with a child and 16 counts of sexual activity with a child in a position of trust between September 2, 2009 and May 1, 2012.
She denied a further charge of perverting the course of justice, which the court was told would lie on file.
None of the boys can be identified for legal reasons. Most told police they had not been affected by Webb’s activities, although one said he felt he had been taken advantage of.
Jennifer Edwards, defending, said Webb had been good at her job, and that the boys had said she was kind to them.
She said Webb regretted her actions and hoped to rebuild her marriage after her release from prison, but could not give a reason why she had embarked on sexual relationships with pupils.
‘Why on earth did she do this? There was nothing for her to gain from having sexual play with boys at her school,’ said Ms Edwards. ‘There was everything for her to lose and nothing to gain.’
She added: ‘They are young and vulnerable but these are young boys on the road to manhood.’
Ms Edwards suggested her offending was in part linked to the murder of her brother several years ago.
‘Each of the boys she became involved with, it appears she spoke to them about her lost brother,’ she said. ‘Perhaps she was looking for some sort of solace.’
No details of the murder were heard by the court.
Ms Edwards added that the judge had been sent a ‘heartfelt’ letter by Webb, plus others in support from other people, including her parents, her children and her husband, who is standing by her.
Judge Reddihough sentenced Webb to 32 months in prison, after he took off a third of her sentence for an early guilty plea.
He told her she could expect to serve half of that behind bars, including the 168 days she has already spent in custody.
‘It may be that to some extent the boys were over 16 at the time of some of the offences, ‘ said the judge. ‘But they were under 18 and you were in a position of trust towards them.
‘What you did will have had an adverse effect on the complainants.
‘There is a real risk they will have twisted attitudes towards females and sex, and be confused as to the appropriate boundaries between adults and children or young people in their care.’
Despite attending court for all of Webb’s previous appearances, her husband was not present today.
A woman who answered the door at their home in Reading said that he was at work.
Source: Daily Mail
