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A tearful teacher apologises after admitting having sex with three of her 17-year-old students - before being jailed for 22 years.

Jennifer Fichter, 30, wept in court as she appealed for leniency but a judge who described her as a 'predator' handed down the long sentence.

Fichter, an English teacher admitted sex sessions with three 17-year-old boys from a school in Florida.

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In a recorded phone call played in court in Lakeland, she said she aborted a pregnancy after having intercourse with one teenager and confessed to having multiple sex sessions with two others.

"All I can say is I'm so sorry," the teacher told family members and the court.

"I wish I could take it back, and my words are not going to suffice I know that."

(Image: Lakeland Police Department)

After leaving her previous job where she was accused of inappropriate behaviour with a student she was hired by a Florida school district in August 2011.

She was accused of having sex with one of the boys just a month after starting her new job.

She met the boys at parties and used her own apartment to take them for sex.

Fichter was accused of 37 counts of sexual contact with a minor.

Prosecutors stressed that because Fichter is female, and the male students were willing participants, did not make them less victimised.

One mother told the court: "It hurts.

"I saw myself losing my son before my very eyes and there was nothing I could do to reach him."

The judge sentenced Fichter to 22 years in prison.