Chloe Queen: Forrest asked her to stay for extra lessons
By
Lucy Osborne,
Tom Kelly and
Claire Ellicott
PUBLISHED:
08:49 GMT, 21 June 2013
|
UPDATED:
00:59 GMT, 22 June 2013
A teenager told last night how shamed maths teacher Jeremy Forrest targeted her when she was just 13.
Chloe
Queen said he sent her Christmas and birthday cards, asked her to watch
him perform with his band and made her stay after class for extra
lessons.
‘I thought he
wanted to teach me more, not realising he possibly had other ideas,’ she
said. ‘He would invade my personal space and make me feel
uncomfortable. He would routinely cuddle me.’
Chloe,
now 17, is one of a string of girls Forrest, 30, tried to groom before
he ran away to France with a 15-year-old last September.
He was jailed for five and a half
years yesterday at Lewes Crown Court and admitted five further counts of
sex with a child after already having been convicted of child
abduction on Thursday.
With time spent on remand he could be free in two
years, at around the time the schoolgirl, who has vowed to wait for
him, turns 18.
In another dramatic day in the case it emerged that:
- Police said they were investigating a
possible third party accused of helping Forrest and the schoolgirl to
contact each other while he was on remand, enabling her to change her
evidence to aid his defence;
- Forrest’s family said he was ‘misunderstood’ and said ‘many factors’ lay behind what happened;
- The schoolgirl sent a series of tweets indicating her continued love for the teacher even as the trial was ongoing.
Off to prison: Jeremy Forrest is led out of
Lewes Crown Court in East Sussex after he was jailed for five and a half
years. His victim's mother said today his crimes took her daughter away
Sombre: As he considers the fact he will not be released for some time, Jeremy Forrest is pictured sitting in his prison van
Chloe Queen said she had no suspicions about the maths teacher, who she says sent her cards and made her stay after class
Mugshot: Jeremy Forrest was told by the judge
that he had broken the cardinal rule of teaching when he had an affair
with a young pupil
But a string of girls have spoken to
the Mail about his predatory habits. He even stroked one female pupil’s
leg during a maths lesson.
Chloe, with her mother’s consent, came
forward to tell the Mail her story after hearing the evidence given
against Forrest at his trial.
She met him when she was 12 at Bishop
Justus School, a comprehensive in Bromley, South London, and was in his
tutor group until her 16th birthday.
She was soon invited to stay behind
for extra maths lessons after school and, by the age of 13, he was
sending her a birthday card which he signed ‘Love, Mr Forrest’ with
three kisses.
Chloe, who has left school and now
works in central London, said last night: ‘He would compliment me all
the time and say things like “You’re a very pretty girl”.
‘He was an in-your-face kind of guy.
When I was sitting down and writing stuff in class, he would lean over
me, in my personal space. He didn’t do that with the other people.
‘When I stayed behind after school for
extra lessons, he would laugh and joke around. He’d tell me things
about the personal lives of other members of staff and tell me about his
wife.
'He would always talk about his pet rabbit and joked that he put
his rabbit before his wife.
‘If he ever saw me crying, he’d ask
what was wrong but I’m not the sort of person to talk about my problems
... he’d hug me anyway.’
Forrest and Chloe moved to different schools at
the same time, in September 2011. She said that before they left he
told her the reason he stayed at the school so long was to see her pass
her GCSEs.
Evidence: A topless picture he took of himself and sent to girl he abducted
Change: In stark contrast to his smirking
expression yesterday, Jeremy Forrest looked very serious as he was
guided into a prison van
Caught on camera: Forrest and the girl aboard a
ferry from Dover to Calais last September, and she clearly still has
feelings for him despite his abduction conviction
'I HAVE FAILED AS A PARENT': MOTHER'S STATEMENT TO COURT
The
victim's mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, today told the
court that their relationship has broken down because of Jeremy Forrest.
'I feel the (daughter) I knew is dead and it upsets me beyond words,' she said.
'I
feel completely useless most of the time. I feel like I have failed as a
parent as I cannot understand how someone could do this to my child and
I had no idea.
'I feel like
the worst mother in the world, whatever anyone else says it doesn't
matter. Someone has got my child and I never saw it coming and never saw
it as it was happening. I feel like part of (her) childhood has been
robbed from me - the last day at school, dressing her up in a party
dress for the school prom, all taken from us.
'My
relationship will never be the same again. She is aiming all her anger
at me, that she has to give evidence in court. Somehow that is all my
fault, she thinks she cannot trust me again and she has gone to live
elsewhere.'
On his and her last day at school he started crying and gave her a hug and kiss on the cheek, she said.
‘After I left, he tried to add me as a
friend on Facebook, but I didn’t accept because I thought it would be
weird to have my teacher as a friend,’ she added.
‘At the time I just
thought he was being friendly but all my friends would tease me that he
fancied me. Now I just find it so strange and it has made me really
question his intentions.’
Chloe’s mother, Lorna Prentice, 45,
said: ‘It’s scary. I’m just so thankful nothing happened to her.
'He
taught her for five years and she would always stay behind after school
for extra maths lessons – just the same as the schoolgirl.
'But we never
had any suspicions at the time. He was a very good teacher, very caring.
Even when she started arguments with him in class, he would never raise
his voice.’
Yesterday a close friend of the
schoolgirl Forrest abducted said he had touched her – forcing her to
inform her parents.
Her mother told the Mail she was ‘horrified’,
adding: ‘It could have been my daughter.’
The close friend said of Forrest:
‘He’d teach my lesson and then he’d come and sit with me for the whole
lesson some days.
'I remember once when he touched my knee, stroked it.
He was like: “Oh, you’re so funny” and stroked my knee and I was like:
“Oh, right” and told him to p*** off.
‘In those lessons, he’d teach and sit
at the front and then he’d come over to talk to me sometimes or he’d
come over to another girl and talk for a little bit.
Family: Solicitor Harriette Ronson, reads a
statement on behalf of Julie Forrest (second right), mother of Jeremy
Forrest, who is standing with her son Tom (right) and daughter Carrie
(second left), outside Lewes Crown Court
Sad: Forrest's mother Julie Forrest hugs a member of her son's legal team on the steps of Lewes Crown Court
Support: Forrest's sister Carrie Hanspaul holds
her husband's hand outside court as her and Jeremy's mother Julie walks
behind wearing sunglasses
Family: Forrest's sister Carrie Hanspaul (right)
and his mother Julie Forrest (left) leave Lewes Crown Court as teacher
Jeremy Forrest was found guilty of abducting a 15-year-old girl who he
took to France
‘There were only certain girls that
he’d talk to. He’d never talk to any boys but there’d be certain girls
that he’d spend a lesson with. When you spoke to him he literally seemed
like he was our age.
‘You think of him like that. He’d
swear in front of us. You thought of him as someone our age and so you’d
never think of it.’
She said she often saw him hanging around in his
car near her home and he would roll down the window to talk to her.
Another ex-pupil at Bishop Justus said
Forrest would text her in his spare time, communicate with her online
and treat her as his ‘favourite’.
Judge Michael Lawson QC sentenced
Forrest to four and a half years for the five offences of sexual
activity with a child and one year for the offence of child abduction,
to run consecutively.
The judge told him: ‘Your behaviour in
this period has been motivated by self-interest and has hurt and
damaged many people – her family, your family, staff and pupils at the
school and respect for teachers everywhere.’
Forrest began grooming his ‘vulnerable’ and ‘infatuated’ victim when she was just 14 after she developed a crush on him.
He picked the girl up from class in
her school uniform and they would have sex in his car, in hotels and at
his marital home. The girl told a friend that they had sex up to eight
times a night.
Fellow teachers failed to heed warnings about their relationship and police acted only after a tip-off from a third party.
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