Alice McBrearty has been jailed for 16 months

A ‘gifted’ young teacher sobbed in the dock as she was jailed for having a four-month relationship with a teenage boy.

Alice McBrearty, 23, used social media to contact the 15-year-old boy and the pair went out for meals together. She also bought him gifts, a court was told.

The teacher kissed him in a classroom, took him to a hotel for sex, and performed sex acts on him in her car and – as a ‘birthday treat’ – in a garage. She also took the teenager to her parents’ home in Manor Park, East London, where they had sex.

At Snaresbrook Crown Court, she was jailed for 16 months after pleading guilty to seven counts of sexual activity with a child while in a position of trust.

Sentencing, Judge Sheelagh Canavan said: ‘You engaged in a full-blown sexual relationship with a 15-year-old child. I accept he was consenting – what 15-year-old schoolboy would turn down such an attractive offer?

‘I accept you truly believed this was a great romance, you were in love with him and vice versa, and that age didn’t matter. But it did.

‘You were supposed to keep him safe, to help him make the right decisions. Instead, you helped him make all the wrong ones. You knew better and you did it anyway. He was precisely at the age when he was at the mercy of his hormones.

‘You breached the trust between student and teacher to satisfy your physical and emotional needs. This was the grossest breach of trust over a period of months.’

The judge described McBrearty as a ‘bright, intelligent and gifted young woman, who knew right from wrong’, but said she had committed the ‘grossest breach of trust’.

McBrearty, 23, kissed and had sex with the boy at her parents' home, in her car, in the classroom and in an IBIS hotel

Judge Canavan called her conviction a ‘spectacular fall from grace’.

McBrearty, who appeared in court dressed in black with her hair tied in a ponytail, admitted to having a sexual relationship with the pupil between February and May this year. The court heard that the relationship began when McBrearty sent the boy, who cannot be identified, a friend request on social media.

McBrearty and the teenager 'kissed passionately' in the classroom

Prosecutor Lisa Matthews said: ‘He woke up one morning to see a friend request from Alice McBrearty on Facebook. He felt special and accepted it.

‘She messaged him asking for his number. They unfollowed each other but then she messaged him again and they started following each other on Instagram.’

Dates began, with the pair acting as a couple, going for strolls and out for meals. Miss Matthews said: ‘He appeared to be besotted with her.’

Several members of staff raised concerns that McBrearty was getting too close to the pupil, but the affair continued.

The court heard the pair had seven sexual encounters, starting when the petite blonde took the youngster to her family home during the February half-term break.

On other occasions, she booked a room at an Ibis hotel in London’s Docklands for sex, and performed sex acts in a garage and in her car. She also kissed the pupil in a classroom at the school.

The relationship unravelled when the boy’s father went to the police after obtaining his son’s telephone records. The pupil was interviewed by police and social workers, and admitted the affair.

His father said the family had been ‘terrified’ about the impact of the case, not only on his son but on the family’s ‘honour’, the court heard.

Emma Shafton, defending, said: ‘This is a young lady who has had a spectacular fall from grace – university educated, comes from a respectable family – she has been utterly disgraced by this.’

She told the judge her client ‘is not sexually attracted to children’, but added: ‘She will of course be branded a paedophile for the rest of her life. She is a sex offender.’

The court heard the relationship began in January, when McBrearty followed the boy on social media and asked for his phone number.

As a 'birthday treat' McBrearty picked the boy up and took him to a nearby garage for oral sex

The teacher was jailed for 16 months at Snaresbrook Crown Court after having an affair with a pupil

The barrister said McBrearty had been ‘thrown in at the deep end’ after joining the profession through the Teach First fast-track training scheme and soon ‘detested’ her job.

She added: ‘She was low at the time. She was asked to teach subjects she had no experience in. That is why instead of socialising with her colleagues she socialised with students in the classroom.

McBrearty has resigned from the teaching profession. Miss Shafton added that while on bail, McBrearty ‘has not been able to get a decent job that matches her qualifications’ and has instead been delivering parcels for Amazon on a zero-hours contract.

McBrearty pleaded guilty to the offences at an earlier hearing.