Headteacher: Anne Lakey (pictured today) has been disgraced after a jury at Teesside Crown Court found her guilty of having sex with a 13-year-old boy

An acclaimed headmistress's career was in ruins last night after she was found guilty of abusing two schoolboys.

Anne Lakey, 55, had earned recognition for leading the ‘most improved’ school in the country.

But away from the classroom she was a ‘disgusting sexual monster’ who preyed on ‘vulnerable’ teenage boys – taking the virginity of one in a tent on a camping trip.

Yesterday, her sordid past finally caught up with her as she was convicted of 13 counts of indecent assault against two victims between 1987 and 1990.

Lakey had denied the charges but she now faces a lengthy jail sentence.

She put her hand to her mouth as the first of the verdicts was announced at Teesside Crown Court, before turning towards her third husband, David, in the public gallery.

Mr Lakey, 39, supported his wife throughout the two-week trial. The two teachers’ daughter Eleanor, 20, wept as the jury’s verdicts were read out.

The Mail can reveal that Lakey has been married three times – each time to a younger man.

Her first husband was two years younger than her, the second eight years and Mr Lakey almost 16 years. He was 18 at the time they wed, while she was 34.

Despite facing up to 14 years in prison, Lakey was granted bail yesterday to spend one last night with her family, including her sick 81-year-old father Fred Westwater, before she is sentenced today.

Judge Howard Crowson told her: ‘I have never given bail to someone at this stage before and I do so only because of your father. I expect to see you here tomorrow at quarter to ten. I am putting you on trust.’

Lakey was chief executive of the Durham Federation – comprising two secondary schools – and was praised in 2011 by Chief Inspector of Schools Sir Michael Wilshaw.

But she was suspended after allegations first surfaced in 2012 when one victim emailed her school.

During the trial, the jury heard how Lakey groomed one boy at her home, having sex with him when he was in his school uniform, and took the virginity of a second in a tent on a camping trip – while her second husband, Eamonn Toland, was sleeping in another tent nearby.

Both boys were left ‘confused’ and ‘damaged’ by their experiences with Lakey, who was about 28 at the time and was working as a history teacher in Sunderland.

Born in County Durham, Lakey had lived with her father, a teacher, and mother Delicia in the former coal mining town of Stanley. After school she studied history at Sheffield University, staying in the city to complete her teacher training at the polytechnic.

In 1983 she married her first husband, Simon Godfrey, originally from Surrey. He was 21 and a postgraduate education student. She was 23 and already a teacher.

Shamed: Lakey's predatory past came back to haunt her in 2012 when her victim sent an accusing email to her school, causing her to be suspended and the police to investigate (pictured with husband David Lakey)

Pictured is Simon Godfrey (left), who was Lakey's first husband and two years her junior and Eamonn Toland (right), her second husband who was eight years younger than her

But for reasons unknown, their marriage was annulled and in 1987 she married Eamonn Toland. He was 19 and working as a sales assistant; she was 27.

Mr Toland told the court how he was ‘head over heels’ in love with Lakey but she ended the marriage after just two years. In a statement read to the jury he told how their sex life stalled when they moved back to Stanley from Huddersfield.

'Visionary': Lakey, pictured in November 2003, came to prominence when she became chief executive of the Durham Federation of Schools

‘For the last 18 months we didn’t have sex,’ he said. ‘I knew things were not right and she didn’t want anything to do with me. I was hurt as I loved her. I was totally besotted with her.’

He added that he returned from working away one day and ‘Anne took me into another room and basically stated that our marriage was over’.

Mr Toland did not know that his wife was secretly sleeping with a teenage boy in their home.

Lakey seduced the victim, now 41, when he was 13 or 14 and had sex regularly with him in her marital bed while Mr Toland was at work.

She asked the boy to call her ‘Mommy’ and rang his school pretending to be his mother when he played truant to be with her, he said. The teacher ‘flattered’ and manipulated the teenager who became ‘submissive to her sexual demands’.

The court heard they met up to twice a week for sex and on one occasion he was forced to hide in a cupboard when Lakey’s husband came home. On one occasion the boy was wearing his school clothes.

The jury was told the pair never used contraception and eventually had a row when he told her he wanted to stop having sex. Lakey ordered him not to ‘tell anybody’, the court heard.

The victim lived with the abuse for years, too scared to report her as he thought his word would not be believed over that of a teacher.

But in 2012 he came across a blog in which Lakey said her ‘raison d’etre’ was ‘to give young people the best start in life’.

Furious, he emailed her school, saying she should not be allowed ‘anywhere near young people, especially boys’ and describing her as a ‘disgusting sexual monster’. Lakey had become headmistress of Deerness Valley Comprehensive in 2001. This became part of the Durham Federation of Schools.

Anne Lakey's father Fred Westwater and her daughter Elanor Lakey leaving court following the guilty verdict

Under her leadership the federation’s other school, Fyndoune Community College, was named the country’s most improved secondary. It boasted GCSE pass rates of 80 per cent in 2013, up from 26 per cent the year before.

Her second victim, now 41, told the jury he was ‘confused’ and with a ‘mess of emotions’ after Lakey took his virginity on a camping trip when he was 15 and she was 28.

He claimed he crept across fields in the dark for the ‘clandestine’ meeting. The teacher had told her husband to sleep in a separate tent before asking the boy to visit her.

The victim added: ‘It was a very confusing experience. It was cold, I was extremely tired.’ The encounter led to a summer of sex sessions, some in Lakey’s marital bed.

These men were children at the time, and became vulnerable victims of sexual abuse at the hands of a woman who had some power and responsibility for them Detective Inspector Aelf Sampson, of Durham Constabulary

After the case, Detective Inspector Aelf Sampson, of Durham Constabulary, said: ‘This case involved two male victims who reported being the victims of sexual abuse in the late 1980s.

‘They both have a clear memory of what happened to them when they were children, corroborated by friends who they told at the time and over later years.

‘These men were children at the time, and became vulnerable victims of sexual abuse at the hands of a woman who had some power and responsibility for them.

‘She was someone who was respected and seen as successful by the community. These boys should have been safe in her company, instead of being damaged by their experience.

‘Regardless of whether these boys appear to have been willing participants in the offences, they could not consent by law to what happened. The law is there to protect victims.

‘Durham Constabulary will continue to support these victims with our partner agencies, as we do for all victims of recent or non- recent sexual abuse.