The "day" in this case being the day of one's sixteenth birthday, when - amongst other things - sex becomes legal. And that's the interesting facet of this story, which in other respects bears striking similarities to the Jeremy Forrest saga which I wrote about in my last entry. The whole tone of the reporting is different: schoolteacher Emma Ager is not described as a 'paedophile' nor even a 'pervert' (she did, after all, turn down the request for a threesome). The teenage boy pupil is not a 'victim', nor was he 'abused' - he simply became a "legend" when the inevitable happened and all his mates found out. And neither was he 'groomed': after all, "I bet you won't be able to keep up with me during sex" is hardly the subtlest chat-up line to use. Admittedly they didn't run away to France together when his mother got suspicious about the phone calls and told the school - the whole thing in fact seems to have not been a "relationship" in any meaningful sense of the word.
But it was illegal: she was a teacher at his school, he was a pupil under 18 - the whole "abuse of trust" scenario is plain to see, and she quite rightly has now been struck off for it. She has not, however, as the commentators on the article have been quick to point out, ended up in jail. Admittedly prosecutions for sexual offences are largely contingent on the alleged victim(s) filing a complaint, and the boy seems to me to have had no obvious reason to make one, since he both started and finished the affair. Furthermore it's only just now surfaced, six years after the event.
Despite all that I may perhaps be forgiven for wondering if it doesn't stink ever so slightly of double standards - especially with the top-rated comments being along the lines of "lucky lad"?
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