UK teacher gets 14 months in prison for sexual abusing vulnerable teenage pupil

A teacher has been sentenced to 14 months in prison for sexually abusing a vulnerable teenage pupil at a school in Scotland. Jacqueline Millar, 36, started having sex with the boy in her car and at her home when he was aged 15, the BBC reported.

Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard the consensual relationship continued for six months until after the boy left the school where he received one-to-one tuition from Millar.  Sheriff Derek O'Carroll described it as "a very tragic case".

He said: "The child was directly under your care, was vulnerable and needed direct one-to-one attention which it was your duty to provide. But you abused your position and took advantage of the position of trust you were placed in as regards this vulnerable child. You knew throughout that what you were doing was wrong."

At a hearing in June, Millar admitted to engaging in sexual behaviour with a minor while working as a teacher. Sheriff O'Carroll said if Millar had not entered an early guilty plea, he would have sentenced her to 20 months in prison. Millar was also placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years.

The court had heard how some colleagues expressed concern to Millar after noticing the closeness of her relationship with the boy, but their concerns went unheeded. Millar's lawyers claimed the boy had become physically and sexually abusive and manipulative of her.

But their relationship continued until police were called to her home in February 2022. The court heard no formal complaints about the boy were made by Millar. Sheriff O'Carroll told Millar: "So far as these criminal proceedings are concerned, the boy was the victim, not you."