September 2009

Pervert teacher Matthew Bartlett is jailed

A PERVERT teacher who had sex with an under-age girl was today starting a four-year jail sentence.

Matthew Bartlett, who snivelled in the dock during the hearing at Warwick Crown Court, was also ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

Bartlett, 31, of Peele Drive, Wilnecote, Tamworth, had pleaded guilty to ten charges of sexual activity with a child and one of inciting the 15-year-old girl to carry out a sex act.

Bartlett has been sacked from the North Warwickshire school where he worked.

Mr Neil Banister, prosecuting, said the victim was a vulnerable girl who had mental health issues and was being treated for depression at the time of the offences.

She had become very secretive and began going out on her own or saying she was seeing friends when, in fact, she was meeting Bartlett.

Her mother had found a note saying: “I hate myself. I hate my life. I have been doing something I am ashamed of.”

Mr Banister added: “The sexual contact between them was then regular and often, frequently at his home when his wife was at work or out for the evening.

Matters came to light after West Midlands Police began to investigate a claim by another girl that Bartlett had sent her suggestive texts.

Bartlett, a former law student who had worked as a teacher since 2000, told police he was contemplating leaving his wife for the girl, but denied any sexual activity had taken place.

But the girl had confided in her mother that it had and, after speaking to his wife, who encouraged him to contact the police,,Bartlett confessed to what he had done.

Ben Mills, defending, said there had been no coercion.

But Judge Richard Griffith-Jones said: “If you take someone who is vulnerable and mixed up and unsure about their self-worth, and bathe them in praise, you don’t need to coerce them.”

Mr Mills added: “Reflecting on what he has done, it is loathsome to him. He is a broken person. He has expressed genuine remorse for what he has done. He has lost absolutely everything.”

Judge Griffith-Jones also banned Bartlett from unsupervised contact with children without the written consent of a parent or guardian or from working with children on a paid or voluntary basis.

He added: “It is a tragedy to see you in the dock of the crown court for this because in many other ways you are a thoroughly decent man with much to offer.

“That said, I am afraid this is a bad case.

“Were it not for your pleas of guilty, a sentence of six to seven years’ imprisonment would have been appropriate.”