Some championed the incarcerated Forrest as a victim of consensual love between a teacher and his teenage student. I ask those supporters, now that his intention to continue teaching abroad has come to light, would you want him teaching your child?:
Paedophile Jeremy Forrest is planning to move to Thailand where he hopes to take back up work as a teacher, it has been claimed.
The 32-year-old was jailed in 2013 after running away to France with a 15-year-old schoolgirl, sparking an international manhunt.
After serving two years of his five-and-a-half year sentence, the paedophile from Lewes, Sussex, could be released later this summer.
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Tags: emily and jeremy forrest, Jeremy Forrest teaching, Jeremy Forrest Thailand
Topical Teaching 
May 26, 2015 at 1:44 pm |
Why on earth wouldn’t you want him teaching your child? He fell in love with one girl, that doesn’t mean he’s some kind of predator or likes young girls generally. The girl in question reciprocated his feelings and clearly stated that everything that happened was consensual. If he wants to go abroad to start a new life then good luck to him. They’ll probably be happy to have him since he was apparently a very good teacher.
May 26, 2015 at 6:25 pm |
Thank you Caroline for outlined the opposing view so comprehensively.
That one girl you talk about was 15 years old. According to your theory a teacher may be sexually involved with their student as long as a) he falls in love and b) she reciprocates.
Would you say the same if she was 13 or 11 or even 9?
For what it’s worth I think that the parents that send their children to school are relying that their childs’ teacher stick to teaching the curriculum and refrain from behaviours beyond their charter of responsibility. As good as Mr. Forrest may be in his general teaching, this saga has in my mind undermined all his good qualities.
May 28, 2015 at 8:35 am
My view is a bit more nuanced than that but on a basic level yes, if two people fall in love, want to be together, and make each other happy, what right do others have to tell them it’s “wrong”? It’d be very different if she was e.g. 11 because 11 year olds don’t have sex so it’s meaningless to talk about an 11 year old “consenting”. Plenty of 15 year olds have consenting sex, mostly with other teenagers but if someone wants to be with an older person shouldn’t that be up to them? It’s their life and their body after all.
As for Forrest, I’m not saying he did nothing wrong. He acted irresponsibly and broke the rules of his profession – but five years in jail?! And treating him like a sex offender / implying he’s some sort of danger to children is really beyond the pale. A suspended sentence and being banned from teaching for a few years would be more proportionate.
I view his actions similar to a doctor having an affair with a patient. Inappropriate? Unprofessional? Yes and yes. But I think doctors only get a temporary suspension if it’s a one-off, they don’t get struck off forever and in my opinion that’s fine if a) it’s mutual and not the doctor being predatory and b) it’s an isolated case of succumbing to emotions and not a pattern of behaviour. Everyone’s human and emotions are tricky things to control.