A teacher's wife became angry after
discovering nail polish belonging to his schoolgirl lover at the marital
home, a court was told today.
Jeremy Forrest told
his 15-year-old pupil that his year-long marriage to Emily Forrest was a
‘hollow sham’ and that they had effectively split up, Lewes Crown Court
in East Sussex heard.
But
the 30-year-old - who is currently on trial for child abduction - was
still sharing a cottage in Ringmer, East Sussex, with his wife, even
after he started to secretly sleep with the girl there.
The
girl said in an interview with police that a few weeks after their
affair started, his wife found one of her nail varnishes she had left
there.
Teacher in the dock: Jeremy Forrest's
15-year-old pupil, giving evidence by videolink, described how their
relationship had developed from a kiss in the classroom to sex at the
cottage he shared with his wife
‘She was angry but because they
had split up but they were still married and that’s when he told her he
was seeing someone else,’ the teenager said in an interview played in
court.
She added that
Forrest’s marriage was an issue for her, saying: ‘The fact that he has a
wife has always been a problem for me. I was like "Why are you with
me?" You’re meant to be in love with the person you marry’.
The teenager also told the court she felt ‘suspicious’ of his wife.
In an interview shown the court from November 27 last year she said: ‘I was quite suspicious in a way.
‘To have a relationship with a teacher, that’s not something I would do usually.
‘Because
he had a wife it made it 10 times worse. That was the biggest problem
for me. Not that he was a teacher or older but that he was married.
‘He
told me he was separated from December. I trusted him but then I
started to see like Emily tweeting things. I looked at her Twitter out
of curiosity.’
She said Forrest’s wife Emily would write ‘nice things’ despite Forrest telling the girl his wife was ‘violent and abusive’.
The
girl said the wife would refer to him as ‘my lovely husband.’ Forrest
said this was ‘her pride’ as their marriage had failed in under a year.
The
court also heard Forrest had looked up how long he could face in jail
for having sex with a child as details emerged of their escape to
France.
Asked about the
possible consequences, the girl said she was aware she was under the
age of consent - but that the age difference between them did not
matter.
Forming a
relationship with the girl was ‘a risk he was willing to take’, the
court heard. She added: ‘He did look up how many years he would be in
prison, not for taking me to France but what had previously happened,
and he told me that.’
The
court had earlier heard the schoolgirl tell how the two of them first
kissed in a classroom. The girl was allegedly 14 at the time of the
clinch with Forrest, which took place after they had been tweeting and
texting regularly.
In
the days leading up to the kiss, the teenager, who cannot be named, said
she attended Bishop Bell Church of England School in Eastbourne, East
Sussex, early specifically to see him.
In
a videoed police interview played at court, the girl, now 16, said: ‘I
do remember being in his room and it was just me and him. He said “I
really want to kiss you” and I said “I really want to”.
‘It
got to the point where there was only so much of a friendship you could
have before it developed into something else.’ She went on: ‘It ended
up being in his classroom.’
As
the relationship turned sexual two months later after she had turned
15, the girl said Forrest knew what the consequences would be for him -
and that he could face prison.
She
said in the interview, dated October 3 last year: ‘He told me that he
didn't want to take advantage of me, and I just didn't have a problem
with it any way.
Educational establishment: In the days leading
up to the kiss, the teenager said she attended Bishop Bell Church of
England School (pictured) in Eastbourne, East Sussex, early -
specifically to see him
‘It was what I wanted to do because of
how much I liked him. I didn't give it a second thought. Obviously I
was worried about it and I spoke to my friends about it.’
She
added: ‘He knew he would go to prison, lose his job and not work with
children again, so he was aware and that made me feel better.
‘There
was no naivety about it and it was what I wanted, and I probably
encouraged it. We would bring it up and I would say 'Yeah, I really want
to'.’
The court has heard that police were alerted to their relationship following a tip-off.
When
a police officer and a social worker visited the girl's home to speak
to her about what was going on, they decided to flee the next day,
September 20.
The
girl's mother had given police permission to seize and analyse her
mobile phone where text messages and pictures exchanged between the pair
were stored.
On trial: The girl was 14 at the time of the
alleged kiss with 30-year-old Jeremy Forrest (pictured today outside
Lewes Crown Court in East Sussex)
Prosecutor Richard Barton has said
that, knowing their relationship was about to be exposed, Forrest booked
them on a cross-Channel ferry from Dover to Calais before spending
seven days on the run.
The
girl spoke of the time she first stayed over at Forrest's house after
telling her mother she was having a sleepover with a friend - but said
nothing sexual happened.
‘He picked me up after school - I
think it was a Friday - and everything we planned was what happened. We
didn't do anything sexual. We slept in the same bed but that's all it
was.
‘I told my friends that nothing was going to happen and I think Jeremy wanted to stick to that as well.’
She added: ‘We watched TV and he made me dinner.’
The following morning, Forrest dropped the teenager off at the top of her road.
The
teacher had stopped wearing his wedding ring, she said, and disclosed
that his marriage was ‘over’ and that he and his wife Emily had
separated twice.
He also told the girl he wanted her to meet his parents - and suspected that he even showed them a picture of her.
‘His parents wouldn't let him commit
adultery so he thought it would be good if I saw them so that they knew
his relationship with Emily was over,’ she said.
As the summer wore on, they spoke about starting a sexual relationship.
She said: ‘In July, we had spoken a lot
about a sexual relationship and whether it was what we both wanted and
whether we thought it was the right thing.’
She said she could not remember the
first time they had sex but that they did it in ‘a few hotels’ when she
would tell her mother she was staying with a friend.
‘The
lead-up was that, just like we had said, we wanted to take things
further and it was a natural thing. We had doubts. He felt so guilty
about it.
‘We shouldn't have even been texting, let alone having a sexual relationship.’
As the girl’s police interview
progressed, she recalled various locations where she had sex with
Forrest - in the spare room of his house, in a Premier Inn hotel and in
his car.
After they started their sexual
relationship, the girl said she was ‘not feeling guilty or feeling like
I’d done anything wrong’ and added that she ‘felt comfortable’.
She said Forrest always wore a condom, saying that was ‘just a given’.
Entrance: Jeremy Forrest arrived at Lewes Crown Court today with a guard for the third day of his trial
Trying to remember the first time she
had sex with Forrest, how many times they had intercourse on that
occasion and what they did afterwards, she said: ‘I think it was twice
but I can’t remember.
‘We just went back to what we were doing before - watching TV. It was just normal.’
The girl said she and Forrest were
looking forward to being ‘close and intimate’ and said he was attentive
afterwards, ‘checking to make sure I was OK’.
The jury heard that the girl was
shown Forrest’s marital bedroom. ‘He showed me the bedroom him and Emily
used to share,’ she said.
Speaking about how Forrest behaved
with her in the period after they first had sex, she said: ‘He was nice.
He was normal. He was exactly how he’d been the whole way through.
‘After having sex for the first time,
it was like a pressure off. I think he was nervous as well. After a few
times of having sex we got used to each other. We just liked being
around each other.
‘He was always really nice and kind and caring and looked after me when we were away.’
The girl said that, with Forrest’s
marital issues, she thought he would have been stressed out at times. ‘I
was expecting him to be stressed and angry but he never was,’ she said.
The girl said that as a couple they ‘made each other happy’ and ‘nothing else mattered’.
The girl talked about a quiet lane
Forrest would drive her down where there was ‘no-one to see us’, and
said it was ‘just a place we could talk face to face’.
She added: ‘Sometimes we did have sex in the car.’
The girl said they referred to each other as ‘boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend’.
'I do remember being in his room and it was just me and him. He said "I really want to kiss you" and I said "I really want to"'
Schoolgirl
She said that, as well as having sex, they would engage in other forms of sexual activity.
‘He asked me if it was OK. We’d already talked about having sex so that didn’t really seem like much of a difference,’ she said.
The girl said her friend found her
relationship with the teacher ‘funny’, but added that friends warned her
to make sure she used protection, to make sure it was what she wanted
and also to be careful that she was not caught.
When asked by police if she thought
or understood there to be a problem with the relationship she was
having, she said there was ‘the teacher thing’, adding: ‘And obviously
the age as well.’
She said that when their ages are put
together there is a ‘bit of a difference’, and some may see it as a
problem, adding: ‘For me it’s not.’
The girl admitted to police that it felt like a ‘relief’ that their relationship was finally out in the open.
‘I’ve never felt what me and Jeremy have done, or being in a relationship, is wrong, because it feels right,’ she said.
She said she understands why it is
wrong from a legal perspective, and admitted that if she was looking at a
similar couple she would think it is ‘not going to work’.
‘I don’t know how you’d have anything in common,’ she added.
But that was not the case for her and
Forrest, as she said: ‘Age was literally the least thing I worried
about. We spoke about the future and stuff and what we both wanted out
of it.’
The girl said Forrest had similar views on their age gap. ‘It didn’t really seem to bother him either.
‘Sometimes I’d just have this weird realisation, like “Oh my God, you’re double my age”,’ she said.
The girl said boys her own age did not interest her and that Forrest gave his blessing to her finding a younger boyfriend.
‘He did say to me “I’ll understand if
you want to find a young boyfriend, like someone in your year”,’ she
said, adding: ‘Obviously boys in my year are teenagers going through
different things, something I wasn’t attracted to.’
Hearing: Lewes Crown Court (file picture) heard that police were alerted to the relationship after a tip-off
The girl said she and Forrest had
‘normal relationship problems’ which she described as ‘silly stuff’ such
as her issues with him having a wife and she mentioned instances when
he would see ‘another boy talking to me’.
The girl said they professed their
love for each other around the time they shared their first kiss. ‘He
didn’t say he loved me. He just said he was in love with me,’ she said.
The girl told the police about the
various social media websites they interacted on and recalled how
‘sexual photos’ were also exchanged. ‘There was topless ones,’ she said.
The girl said she sent the first
photo, adding: ‘I was just wearing a hooded jacket and underwear.
Nothing was completely showing.’
She
went on: ‘That was just because we were talking about becoming
intimate. I didn’t really have a reason. I just wanted to send it so I
did.’
The girl said Forrest was ‘really shocked’ by the photograph and added that he never asked her for pictures.
She added: ‘It was my way of showing him I was more grown up than I was.
‘I don’t know how to put it. At the time it felt like I didn’t want him to see me as a child.
'He always said he didn’t see me as a child. He isn’t attracted to children.
‘Obviously being 15 that’s how I felt because I’m under the age of consent I’m not an adult I felt like a child because I was.’
She
spoke about events leading up to their disappearance to France and the
call she received from her ‘calm’ sounding mother who asked her to come
home following a visit by the authorities.
Immediately
suspecting that the visit from a police and child protection officer
related to their relationship, she went to see Forrest who was doing a
revision class.
She said:
‘I was standing there shaking and was really concerned and panicking.’
She said Forrest told her to ‘tell them what you need to say’.
When
she got home, her phone was confiscated by police for analysis and the
girl said she denied everything as she did not want to get Forrest into
trouble.
'We wanted to take things further and it was a natural thing. We had doubts. He felt so guilty about it'
Schoolgirl
‘It
was much easier to say nothing and deny it all rather than sit there
and drag it all out. The child protection officer and the police officer
asked questions about sexual contact, pictures and texting and I denied
everything.
‘The first
thing I did after they left was to pack a bag and that's what I did. I
was thinking of running away by myself. I packed clothes, underwear,
toiletries and pyjamas and that was it.’
The
girl said she was going to leave that night but then decided to think
things through. The plan to go to France was ‘kind of my suggestion’ and
she said she encouraged Forrest to go with her.
Forrest
took out money the night before their disappearance and he said he
would take some more out later. She said they had spoken about running
away together before but only in a ‘jokey’ sense.
Ferry
tickets were booked for them under his and his wife's name before they
headed to the Port of Dover. En route, conversation was limited in the
car, she said.
‘There
wasn't much conversation, it was just focusing on getting to Dover and
away from England,’ she said. ‘He was panicking a lot. Normally he was
relaxed but his arms were tensing up and just the look on his face...
‘We were going to get caught for something that wasn't wrong. I suppose it is wrong but to us we didn't think it was.’
Before
they boarded the ferry, one of the girl's friend's texted Forrest
saying: ‘Can you look after her?’ Forrest replied: ‘Yeah, I promise I
will.’
Appearing in court via video-link so she could be informed of what would happen this afternoon, the girl giggled and smiled.
As
the footage from the police interviews resumed, she recalled an
argument she had with Forrest in France over their whereabouts and his
ability to get them to where they wanted to go.
‘It
wasn't really like a full-on argument. It was tension, stress. Emotions
coming out. We got lost and he ended up an hour and a half away from
where we were supposed to be.
‘My faith in him getting us back was not very strong,’ she said.
The
teenager said she questioned Forrest's ability to navigate and he got
‘firm’ with her. ‘He didn't shout but he just used a really firm tone.
‘He didn't swear or anything,’ she said, adding: ‘I've never heard him shout or use that tone.’
The
girl said that was the closest they ever came to having an argument in
France, and added that Forrest wrote her a note in the hotel room
afterwards to apologise.
The
note included the affectionate term ‘baby’ and had a smiley face which
she said they often used in text messages. The girl said she would hold
grudges a little, while Forrest ‘just gets over it and moves on’.
She said the details she chose to put on the CV she had created were ‘kind of like a fantasy’ and were ‘obviously exaggerated’.
Scots-born Forrest, of Petts Wood, Kent, denies child abduction. The trial continues.
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