Many are astounded at the severity of the sentence handed down to Mr. Forrest, the maths teacher convicted of child abduction. They claimed that the girl willfully traveled with him to France and voluntarily allowed herself to become sexually involved with him.
Putting aside the fact that teachers should never be allowed to enter into such relationships with school children and ignoring the fact that she was underage at the time, I ask, was this relationship really about love for Mr. Forrest, or was it about the recruit that succumbed to his advances?
Recent evidence suggests that had she not entered into a relationship with him, his focus may well have shifted to other schoolgirls:
A teenager told last night how shamed maths teacher Jeremy Forrest targeted her when she was just 13.
Chloe Queen said he sent her Christmas and birthday cards, asked her to watch him perform with his band and made her stay after class for extra lessons.
‘I thought he wanted to teach me more, not realising he possibly had other ideas,’ she said. ‘He would invade my personal space and make me feel uncomfortable. He would routinely cuddle me.’
Chloe, now 17, is one of a string of girls Forrest, 30, tried to groom before he ran away to France with a 15-year-old last September.
He was jailed for five and a half years yesterday at Lewes Crown Court and admitted five further counts of sex with a child after already having been convicted of child abduction on Thursday.
With time spent on remand he could be free in two years, at around the time the schoolgirl, who has vowed to wait for him, turns 18.
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