Tutor got off lightly, seduced boy claims
A schoolboy who was groomed for sex by a female teaching assistant twice his age has called her suspended prison sentence “atrocious” and said that it would not have been given to a male teacher.
Caroline Berriman, 30, from Oldham in Manchester, walked free from court despite having admitted that she had seduced the boy while she was tutoring him in maths and English.
She was given a two-year suspended sentence at Minshull Street crown court after admitting two counts of sexual activity with a child and one charge of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust.
The boy, who cannot be identified, said to The Sun: “The sentence was atrocious. If it was a man and a 15-year-old girl, I’m sure the prosecution would have been harsher.”
The teenager, who was 15 at the time of the abuse, said that he had had sex with Berriman “over 50 times” after meeting her at Abraham Moss Community School in Manchester.
Now 17, he said that the pair had not started having sex until five months into their relationship but that from then on it was regular and “always unprotected”.
The boy said he had believed he was in love but that his world started to unravel when Berriman introduced him to her two-year-old daughter. She also told him she was pregnant by him. “Stuff like that has scarred me for life,” he said. “It got to a point where her daughter was calling me dad. I used to say to her, ‘I’m not, I’m your mum’s friend’.”
The stress led him to confide in his older brother. Their mother heard about it and ordered him to end it, threatening that she would call the police. The abuse was eventually uncovered after the boy called ChildLine. Berriman was suspended by the school as soon as the allegations came to light and is no longer employed there. The boy said that Berriman began grooming him in January last year after he saw her using Facebook on her phone in class.
The boy, who said that he had a “crush” on his tutor, contacted her on Facebook. He said she was quick to reply and asked him for his mobile number so they could flirt by text.
In addition to her suspended sentence, Berriman must complete 250 hours of community work and is under a restraining order preventing her from contacting her victim.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/c ... 571467.ece
