August 2007

So betrayed by teacher who preyed on my teenage daughter

A MERSEYSIDE mother today told of how she felt betrayed by a teacher who took advantage of her young daughter.

Gareth Lyons last week admitted in court he abused his position of trust to engage in sexual activity with one of his teenage pupils.

The 30-year-old business teacher at a St Helens high school admitted kissing and hugging the girl he used as an “emotional crutch” as he battled an eating disorder.

Unaware of any physical relationship and thinking it was just a schoolgirl crush the victim’s mother told Lyons to back off.

But the highly-regarded teacher continued to turn to the young girl for support.

The impressionable teenager tried to help him though his bulimia and the pair began swapping secret, suggestive and sexual text messages.

When he wrote of his feelings for her in the student’s leaving book and was confronted for a second time Lyons promised to stop again.

But some months later, when more secret texts were discovered, the girl’s mother called in police.

Today she told the ECHO: “In court Lyons tried to put the blame on my daughter but he was the teacher in a position of authority and she is the young schoolgirl.

“Every time I confronted him he promised to stop and played on his illness so I felt sorry for him and didn’t go to the authorities.

“I felt that somehow I would be betraying him if I went to his bosses because of his illness.

“But he didn’t stop. He manipulated me and my daughter.

“I knew she had a crush on him but every girl has a crush on a teacher at some point. He knew she had a crush too but didn’t back off as he should of.

“If I’d have ever thought it was something more serious or something physical I would have gone straight to the school and the police.

“Once I found out what had really gone on, that he had betrayed his position as a teacher, I felt so angry.”

Lyons, of Swinton, Manchester, was given a 36-month supervision order, ordered to attend a sex offenders’ programme and put on the sex offenders’register for five years.

The girl’s mother added: “I didn’t want him to go to prison. He needs help.”