According to testimony given in court, a female teacher “had a sexual relationship with a male student age under 16 and sent him pictures of her breasts on WhatsApp and Snapchat.”
When she was a teacher at his Greater Manchester school in 2019, Rebecca Whitehurst, 46, is accused of exchanging “sexualised messages” with the young student, who cannot be named for legal reasons, before engaging in sexual conduct.
Additionally, it is claimed that she “would have known” that the boy was under the age of 16 at the time of the sexual conduct.
At Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court, Whitehurst is on trial for two counts of sexual activity and sexual communication.
Julian Goode, prosecuting, told the court: ‘Over time, the teacher pupil relationship grew and grew to the extent that they started messaging each other outside of school hours having obtained her contact details.
‘They began to spend more time outside school hours which culminated in sexualised exchanges of messages between the two and allegedly in this defendant touching his penis with her hands and mouth.
‘That in a nutshell is what the case is about.’
The court heard that Whitehurst spoke to a colleague about issues ‘so profound’ she may have had to leave the school.
The teacher said she had problems with a particular student, adding that she had given him her contact details and had met him outside the school on a ‘number of occasions’, jurors were told on Monday.
Mr Goode added: ‘The messaging between the two had become sexualised and they reported it immediately to the head of the school.’
The court heard that the two communicated via text messages, that he gave Whitehurst “naked pictures” of himself, and that they met outside of school eight times.
The student claimed during a police interview that was played in court that he thought they were in a relationship and that they liked one another.
He claimed that the messages initially circulated through school emails before moving to WhatsApp and Snapchat.
The student told the court that Whitehurst had instructed her to erase a number of her texts, including one with a photograph of her breasts.
She allegedly drove him about in her Volvo when they first started dating after school in different parts of Fallowfield.
The court was told that on one of these occasions, they went to a dead end road and had intercourse there.
The boy said during the police interview that the sexual activity was consensual, but he also revealed that he had tried to keep some things to himself because he was “worried about her.”
The boy said Whitehurst ‘knew what she was doing was wrong’ and she was aware she had done the ‘worst thing possible as a teacher’, the interview added.
He denied any allegations that he was groomed.
Mr Goode said: ‘[Messages were] clearly sexual in nature. They were detailed and prolonged messages and there was plentiful contact between the two of them.
‘When he discussed his love for her and further contact and when he discussed classes and thinking about sex with her she did very little to correct or stop those assertions.
‘The sexual nature [of the messages] is clear from the wording.’
Whitehurst, of Oaklands Drive in Lymm, claims that the sexual texts have been manipulated and that no sexual activity took place.
The trial continues.