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Judge tells snogging teacher she is a liar...
A young woman teacher was condemned by a judge as a liar after she was convicted of abusing her position of trust by kissing a teenage pupil.
Geography tutor Shelley White had claimed at Leeds Crown Court the 15-year-old "chunky" pupil had been the predator when they kissed in a classroom and in a store room at a Castleford school.
But the jury of seven women and five men convicted her of having sexual activity with a child after a week long trial by 10-2 majority verdicts.
Judge Sally Cahill, QC, adjourned sentence for reports but granted 25-year-old White, of High Green, Sheffield, bail telling her she would not be jailed.
But she scathingly told White: "You have throughout this trial portrayed yourself as a victim.
"It is fair to say you are a victim – but not a victim, as you have put it, of your friends, the pupil and, indeed, the Press."
Judge Cahill added: "You are a victim of your own stupidity. I see it as very sad that you stand before me in court today as you do."
Ashen-faced White left court hand-in-hand, with her husband Christian, also a teacher, without comment.
She will be sentenced next month when the judge has received the "maximum information" about her before deciding her fate.
But Judge Cahill told her: "I am not going to send you to custody. There are other more appropriate sentencing options."
The jury heard after their verdicts White, who now faces considerable costs for fighting her case, had lost the services of her solicitor – after he had withdrawn from representing her.
The Judge told the jury they could draw their own inferences after the lawyer had abandoned her case.
The teacher claimed she had been "violated" by the pupil but a colleague told the court she had bragged to her about her relationship with the teenager describing him as "exciting and gorgeous."
John McLeod, Wakefield's corporate director for education and culture, said after the case: "We are delighted the case is now over and the school and pupils involved can begin to recover from the process.
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