Cuffed: Jeremy Forrest, pictured smirking as he leaves court after being found guilty, intends to marry his victim
Jeremy Forrest intends to marry the
besotted schoolgirl he abducted when she was his 15-year-old pupil, The
Mail on Sunday can reveal.
In
an exclusive interview, Forrest’s sister Carrie Hanspaul, 33, says the
maths tutor told his parents during a prison visit: ‘ I love her and we
want to get married.’
The
dramatic twist in the nine-month long saga comes as The Mail on Sunday
reveals for the first time the contents of an emotional letter the pupil
wrote to Forrest’s parents, in which she declares her undying love for
him.
In the five-page note on lilac Laura Ashley notepaper, signed with two kisses, she describes Forrest as ‘wonderful’.
The
girl, who recently turned 16, sent it as her former teacher at Bishop
Bell School in Eastbourne awaited trial for her abduction and five
counts of having sex with a child. He was jailed for five and a half
years.
The girl apologised
‘for any upset I have caused’ and said she felt safer while on the run
in France with Forrest last September than at home or school.
She
told his retired parents: ‘I can’t emphasise enough how everything I
feel towards Jeremy is – more than anything – serious . . . he is
wonderful.
‘Obviously I now and will continue in the future to stand by him. I do believe that some things are worth fighting for.
‘For
now, though I’m going to concentrate on working hard to get the future
both me and Jeremy want and I’m preparing for college.’
She
added that she had been accepted on an A-level maths course, joking:
‘Maybe he would find it comical as maths was my worst subject at
school.’
Mrs Hanspaul described her
30-year-old brother as immature and someone who ‘hadn’t fully grown up
yet’, but said she could never think of him as a paedophile and claimed
he himself was ‘vulnerable’ at the time of his offences.
She said he was suffering from depression after two years in a ‘destructive’ marriage with his estranged wife Emily.
Speaking on behalf of her parents, Mrs Hanspaul said she had always regarded her younger brother as ‘immature’.
Same age as his victim: The Forrest family on
holiday in La Rochelle, France, with Jeremy in the middle aged 16,
posing with his siblings Carrie and Tom
Celebrations: Jeremy and younger brother Tom give Carrie a kiss on her wedding day in 2005
‘He’s never seemed his age,’
she said. ‘I’ve never seen him as a grown-up, even though he’s been a
teacher and he took his job really seriously – but he wasn’t very good
with money.
'He’s still
very into music and all that, and it made me think he hadn’t fully
grown up yet, as if he felt he was still in his early 20s rather than
30.
‘But the girl comes across as being very mature in the way she expresses herself. She’s an intelligent mature girl.’
Family ties: Carrie Hanspaul has spoken to her brother's victim
Mrs Hanspaul said she felt protective
towards the girl and she was seen offering her a comforting arm at the
dramatic moment when the jury returned their guilty verdict at Lewes
Crown Court last week.
She
recalled: ‘Jeremy mouthed to me, “look after her, comfort her”, because
she was really upset. So I just turned around and told her it was OK and
put an arm round her.
‘I know that she’s the girl that my brother’s in love with. It was hard that she was so upset and that was upsetting him.
'So I suppose I instantly felt protective. I didn’t want to see her sitting there crying
‘If
they’re going to carry on and be in a relationship, we would welcome
her into our family and offer any support she was to ask for. We are
concentrating on getting him through this.
‘He
told my dad the first time he saw him that we didn’t need to worry
about him, that he was happier now than he’d felt for a couple of years
and he could definitely see light at the end of the tunnel.
'My
dad says we are the ones holding that light for him at the end of the
tunnel, and if that means supporting the girl then we will do that. He’s
asked us to look after her.
‘Take
the age gap on its own – away from her being under-age – if she was 30
and he was aged 45, there are a lot of relationships like that.
‘I
don’t see it as predatory or grooming. It’s not going to be a normal
relationship as he’s in prison and she isn’t, so they’re not going to be
going out or anything.
'Throughout this we’ve really tried to support him and not to judge him.’
Mrs
Hanspaul said she and her parents had been overwhelmed by messages of
support on social media following the media interest in the case, and
called for lessons to be learned by the educational authorities.
She said: ‘I know that Jeremy lied and
denied things, but if the school did know something was going on between
him and the girl, shouldn’t they have phoned the police sooner than
they did?
'Also, when the police were finally called in, they effectively dropped their investigation.’
Referring to allegations yesterday
that Forrest ‘groomed’ another schoolgirl when she was just 13 at his
previous school in Kent, Mrs Hanspaul said: ‘In situations like this
it’s inevitable that people come out of the woodwork, but what can
Jeremy do to defend himself?
‘She could have gone to the police, but she’s gone to the papers.’
She
said her family’s focus had been on supporting Forrest for fear he
might harm himself in prison, and they had tried not to judge him.
‘‘He’s in the vulnerable prisoner wing of Lewes Prison.
I remember meeting him the first time
in prison and asking him over and over, “why the hell didn’t you tell
us, why didn’t you ask us for help?”
Revealing: Written on Laura Ashley lilac paper, the schoolgirl tells Jeremy Forrest's parents that she will stand by him
'He said, “I love her” and he knew
he had done something stupid and wrong, but he said they loved each
other.’
Mrs Hanspaul revealed her brother was nervous on the day the girl gave evidence in court in case she did not return his smile.
LEAD DETECTIVE'S RACIST AND SEX TEXT PAST
The
detective who led the Jeremy Forrest investigation had previously been
suspended from his job for sending out racist and sexually explicit text
messages to his colleagues.
Detective
Chief Inspector Mark Ling, who was placed in charge of the inquiry last
September when Forrest and the schoolgirl fled to France, was singled
out for praise by the girl’s mother for his ‘commitment and dedication’
to the investigation.
However,
in 2011, while he was District Commander in Hastings, Ling was accused
of sending a racist joke by text to colleagues about the model Katie
Price’s disabled son, Harvey.
He also allegedly sent an explicit version of the nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet from his work BlackBerry.
Another,
it was reported at the time, featured a song, ‘The Twelve Days of
Christmas – Hastings Style’, mocking the town where he grew up and had
been District Commander since 2008.
The
texts – particularly the one about Harvey, 11, who is blind and
autistic and has difficulty walking – were brought to the attention of
Sussex Police. Ling was suspended for six months and found guilty of
gross misconduct.
He was give a final warning and redeployed to a ‘crime management’ role in Eastbourne.
After
the Forrest trial ended last week, he said of the teacher: ‘He was in a
position of responsibility, authority and trust over his children in
his care, something parents and the wider community expect to be upheld
at all costs.’
Sussex Police confirmed Ling was disciplined in 2011, but said he has been commended for his work on the Forrest case.
‘He was worried that maybe her feelings had changed. I don’t think he could have withstood it if she’d rejected him.’
On
the day, the pair exchanged mouthed declarations of love across the
well of the court. Mrs Hanspaul expressed sympathy for the mother of the
girl, who told the court last week she felt like the daughter she knew
‘was dead’.
She said: ‘It
was obviously terrible for her, but the thing is Jeremy has told us all
that the relationship with her mother isn’t all it’s been made out to
be. It’s worse.
‘And
obviously she was worried, I’d be worried. But even at the time her
step-dad said he knew Jeremy and he didn’t think she was in any danger.
‘Obviously I’ve thought about this – I can see it from a different perspective because I do have three daughters.
‘It’s hard – girls do fall in love at 15. They can lose their innocence if you like, with someone of their own age.
‘Jeremy didn’t set out to do that. They really did fall in love.’
Mrs
Hanspaul, from Orpington, Kent, said she took her three daughters –
aged six, five and four –to see their ‘Uncle Jemmy’ in prison recently.
‘It was a difficult decision for us to make, but they adore him.
‘At
first we just told them that he and Emily had split up. Then we told
them that he has to go and see a judge and the judge has to decide
because he’s done something against the law – that he’d run away, no
more than that. They’re too young to take in any more.
‘I told them the judge has decided he’d have to stay in prison a little while longer.’
She added: ‘He’s much more himself than he used to be.
‘He’s been amazing in prison, getting involved in teaching and mentoring other prisoners – it’s actually been good for him.’
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