Teacher put on sex offenders register for affair with pupil moves teenager into her marital home

Eppie Sprung Dawson was caught with student Matthew Robinson, then 17



Robinson moved into Sprung Dawson's former marital home two months after she was placed on sex offenders' register



His parents say Sprung Dawson has her 'hooks into him' and 'won't let go'

Teacher Eppie Sprung Dawson has moved the teenager, now 18, into her home despite being on the sex offenders' register

A teacher caught having an affair with her 17-year-old pupil is now living with him in her marital home, two months after being placed on the sex offenders’ register.

Eppie Sprung Dawson, 27, lost her job and her marriage after being discovered half-naked in a layby with teenager Matthew Robinson.



She narrowly escaped a prison sentence and is now working behind a bar in Dumfries.

But she has moved the boy she was caught with into her house, to the distress of his parents who are appealing to him to come home.

Matthew, now 18, left his parents’ farmhouse last week after a row with his mother over failing to tidy his room. He is now living with his former teacher and they fear he may not return.

The teenager’s mother, Sheree Robinson, said: ‘We had a normal family row about his room being untidy and he just left. He rang Eppie to come and pick him up.

‘We don’t know what she is after and what is in her mind.

‘I think the whole family are still in shock. You send your child to school and you expect them to to be safe.



'She is a sex offender - she has abused her power and her position to gain the trust of a child and to do this.

‘Given he was 17 when this happened, she should have gone to jail.’

The young teacher’s affair was exposed when they were caught together in her car following a school dance last December.



The pair were half-naked when police knocked on the window and she pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a person under 18 while she was in a position of trust and his teacher.

Sprung Dawson escaped being jailed at the court case in July but was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for six months and given a six-month community payback order.

She lost her job at St Joseph’s College in Dumfries and separated from her husband of two years, Ranald Dawson, also a teacher and the son of former Solicitor General for Scotland Lord Dawson.

But just minutes after appearing in the dock, Matthew’s father, Jonathan Robinson, revealed the disgraced teacher telephoned his son.

The pair have stayed in close contact and she has showered the youngster with expensive Xbox computer games and rugby tops.

Engineer Mr Robinson, 45, said: ‘She’s just generally keeping him there by buying him things.

‘She has got her hooks into him at the moment. She just can’t let go.’



Dawson had sex with the student after she offered to give extra help to at St Joseph's College, Dumfries

Matthew’s family fear they will become a couple, although he has insisted to his parents that they are just friends.

The pair are currently living together in Sprung Dawson’s house in an upmarket area of Dumfries, which she shared with her husband before he walked out.

Mrs Robinson, a mother of six, said she and her husband had begged the teacher, who they knew from parents’ evenings, to end the relationship following the trial.

She said: ‘We asked her to our farmhouse to talk to her and we thought it was resolved because she said she was happy to leave him alone and it was Matthew’s choice.

‘We now know she went and rang him shortly afterwards. She didn’t do what we asked her and she was devious. It is clear she wants more out of the relationship than Matthew but he has no chance to meet a girl his own age while he is living there.’

Instead of backing off from Matthew, Mrs Sprung Dawson is said to have bombarded him with text messages and phone calls.

She grew close to Matthew after giving the dyslexic schoolboy extra lessons to help him with his studies.

Sprung Dawson's marriage to husband Ranald ended after the affair was revealed and the student is now living in their former marital home in Dumfries

During their secret affair, she took him to a hotel in Carlisle for a romantic trip and attended parties with his teenage friends.

His parents had no suspicions and Matthew told them he was playing rugby. The first they knew was when the police turned up at their door last year.

Their son, now a carpentry and joinery student at Dumfries College, has given no indication he will return home and his parents say he has become isolated from friends his own age.

Mrs Sprung Dawson, who is undergoing psychosexual counselling after telling Dumfries Sheriff Court she had been molested by an older man at the age of 13, was not at home yesterday.

The owner of the Slipstream bar, where she now works, said she had been given as much time off as she needed following the renewed attention over her relationship and had gone to Edinburgh.



No one was available for comment at the house she shares with Matthew.

The family of Matthew Robinson have said they have ‘no clue’ what to do next, and have refused to visit him at Sprung Dawson’s home.

Mrs Robinson said she believed the teenager had been pursued by his teacher, adding: ‘He is a teenage boy and what teenage boy would not have done what he did?

‘We are still in shock over everything that has happened.