Teacher who had sex with schoolboy, 15, is spared jail after judge says: 'He touched you first'



A teaching assistant who slept with a boy of 15 escaped jail yesterday after a judge ruled the child made the first move and was not ‘corrupted’ by the experience.

Leah Davies, 30, had sex with the schoolboy in his family home after being invited over by his mother, with whom she was friends.

After the mother went to bed, Davies and the boy watched a DVD and drank vodka before having sex in the living room.

Leah Davies arriving at Manchester Crown Court, where she was convicted of having a secret fling with a 15-year-old boy

Judge Martin Rudland said she was a hard-working woman who made a tragic mistake

She was given a 12-month suspended sentence, plus a two-year supervision order, after Judge Martin Rudland said she was an ‘ordinary, decent, hard-working woman who made a tragic and foolish mistake’.

Davies first kissed the boy in autumn 2009 and on another occasion performed a sex act on him, but they only had sex once, Manchester Crown Court heard.

The police were called after he confided to his aunt last year. Yesterday Davies, a mother of one who taught at several primary schools, was convicted of sexual activity with a child. The judge said: ‘There have been cases in which the power in a relationship has been imbalanced, with the younger person having less. But that’s not the case here.

‘The complainant, if he can be described as such, was a gregarious young man who played in a band and was sexually experienced.

‘The experience was short-lived and required no coercion. He touched you first. He was not seduced or corrupted by the experience.

At Manchester Crown Court Miss Davies convicted of four counts of sexual activity with a child

‘None of the matters to which I have referred, nor the nature of the relations as I’ve described them is meant to make light of this type of case. It is not common but nor is it unknown.’

Davies had been a close friend of the boy’s mother for three years and had even been on holidays with the family, the court heard. The boy told police he had a friendly relationship with her and was close to her ten-year-old son.

‘She’d come over with him,’ he said. ‘She’d looked after us a few times with my sister, like when my mum went down to Brighton to be with my other aunt who was having a baby. We’d stay at hers for a few days.

‘We’d talk about films and bands, she was into the same music as me.’

He said she saw him in school uniform when she came round during the week and definitely knew he was 15.

The boy added: ‘I don’t feel like it was forced onto me.’

The boy’s mother said discovering what had happened ‘came as a shock’.

She sent a text message to Davies saying she had found out, but Davies said she didn’t know what she was talking about. That was the last contact the pair had.

Davies of Fallowfield, Manchester, denied any wrongdoing and claimed that the boy, who is now 16, was ‘attention-seeking’. She is now working as a cleaner.



