On trial: The girl was 14 at the time of the alleged kiss with 30-year-old Jeremy Forrest (pictured today outside Lewes Crown Court in East Sussex)...
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A teacher's wife became angry after discovering nail polish belonging to his schoolgirl lover at the marital home, a court was told today.
Jeremy Forrest told his 15-year-old pupil that his year-long marriage to Emily Forrest was a ‘hollow sham’ and that they had effectively split up, Lewes Crown Court in East Sussex heard.
But the 30-year-old - who is currently on trial for child abduction - was still sharing a cottage in Ringmer, East Sussex, with his wife, even after he started to secretly sleep with the girl there.
The girl said in an interview with police that a few weeks after their affair started, his wife found one of her nail varnishes she had left there.
‘She was angry but because they had split up but they were still married and that’s when he told her he was seeing someone else,’ the teenager said in an interview played in court.
She added that Forrest’s marriage was an issue for her, saying: ‘The fact that he has a wife has always been a problem for me. I was like "Why are you with me?" You’re meant to be in love with the person you marry’.
The court also heard Forrest had looked up how long he could face in jail for having sex with a child as details emerged of their escape to France.
Asked about the possible consequences, the girl said she was aware she was under the age of consent - but that the age difference between them did not matter.
Forming a relationship with the girl was ‘a risk he was willing to take’, the court heard. She added: ‘He did look up how many years he would be in prison, not for taking me to France but what had previously happened, and he told me that.’
The court had earlier heard the schoolgirl tell how the two of them first kissed in a classroom. The girl was allegedly 14 at the time of the clinch with Forrest, which took place after they had been tweeting and texting regularly.
In the days leading up to the kiss, the teenager, who cannot be named, said she attended Bishop Bell Church of England School in Eastbourne, East Sussex, early specifically to see him.
In a videoed police interview played at court, the girl, now 16, said: ‘I do remember being in his room and it was just me and him. He said “I really want to kiss you” and I said “I really want to”.
‘It got to the point where there was only so much of a friendship you could have before it developed into something else.’ She went on: ‘It ended up being in his classroom.’
As the relationship turned sexual two months later after she had turned 15, the girl said Forrest knew what the consequences would be for him - and that he could face prison.
She said in the interview, dated October 3 last year: ‘He told me that he didn't want to take advantage of me, and I just didn't have a problem with it any way.
Educational establishment: In the days leading up to the kiss, the teenager said she attended Bishop Bell Church of England School (pictured) in Eastbourne, East Sussex, early - specifically to see him...
‘It was what I wanted to do because of how much I liked him. I didn't give it a second thought. Obviously I was worried about it and I spoke to my friends about it.’
She added: ‘He knew he would go to prison, lose his job and not work with children again, so he was aware and that made me feel better.
‘There was no naivety about it and it was what I wanted, and I probably encouraged it. We would bring it up and I would say 'Yeah, I really want to'.’
The court has heard that police were alerted to their relationship following a tip-off.
When a police officer and a social worker visited the girl's home to speak to her about what was going on, they decided to flee the next day, September 20.
The girl's mother had given police permission to seize and analyse her mobile phone where text messages and pictures exchanged between the pair were stored.
Prosecutor Richard Barton has said that, knowing their relationship was about to be exposed, Forrest booked them on a cross-Channel ferry from Dover to Calais before spending seven days on the run.
The girl spoke of the time she first stayed over at Forrest's house after telling her mother she was having a sleepover with a friend - but said nothing sexual happened.
‘He picked me up after school - I think it was a Friday - and everything we planned was what happened. We didn't do anything sexual. We slept in the same bed but that's all it was.
‘I told my friends that nothing was going to happen and I think Jeremy wanted to stick to that as well.’
She added: ‘We watched TV and he made me dinner.’
The following morning, Forrest dropped the teenager off at the top of her road.
The teacher had stopped wearing his wedding ring, she said, and disclosed that his marriage was ‘over’ and that he and his wife Emily had separated twice.
He also told the girl he wanted her to meet his parents - and suspected that he even showed them a picture of her.
‘His parents wouldn't let him commit adultery so he thought it would be good if I saw them so that they knew his relationship with Emily was over,’ she said.
As the summer wore on, they spoke about starting a sexual relationship.
She said: ‘In July, we had spoken a lot about a sexual relationship and whether it was what we both wanted and whether we thought it was the right thing.’
She said she could not remember the first time they had sex but that they did it in ‘a few hotels’ when she would tell her mother she was staying with a friend.
‘The lead-up was that, just like we had said, we wanted to take things further and it was a natural thing. We had doubts. He felt so guilty about it.
‘We shouldn't have even been texting, let alone having a sexual relationship.’
As the girl’s police interview progressed, she recalled various locations where she had sex with Forrest - in the spare room of his house, in a Premier Inn hotel and in his car.
After they started their sexual relationship, the girl said she was ‘not feeling guilty or feeling like I’d done anything wrong’ and added that she ‘felt comfortable’.
She said Forrest always wore a condom, saying that was ‘just a given’.
Entrance: Jeremy Forrest arrived at Lewes Crown Court today with a guard for the third day of his trial...
Trying to remember the first time she had sex with Forrest, how many times they had intercourse on that occasion and what they did afterwards, she said: ‘I think it was twice but I can’t remember.
‘We just went back to what we were doing before - watching TV. It was just normal.’
The girl said she and Forrest were looking forward to being ‘close and intimate’ and said he was attentive afterwards, ‘checking to make sure I was OK’.
The jury heard that the girl was shown Forrest’s marital bedroom. ‘He showed me the bedroom him and Emily used to share,’ she said.
Speaking about how Forrest behaved with her in the period after they first had sex, she said: ‘He was nice. He was normal. He was exactly how he’d been the whole way through.
‘After having sex for the first time, it was like a pressure off. I think he was nervous as well. After a few times of having sex we got used to each other. We just liked being around each other.
‘He was always really nice and kind and caring and looked after me when we were away.’
The girl said that, with Forrest’s marital issues, she thought he would have been stressed out at times. ‘I was expecting him to be stressed and angry but he never was,’ she said.
The girl said that as a couple they ‘made each other happy’ and ‘nothing else mattered’.
The girl talked about a quiet lane Forrest would drive her down where there was ‘no-one to see us’, and said it was ‘just a place we could talk face to face’.
She added: ‘Sometimes we did have sex in the car.’
The girl said they referred to each other as ‘boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend’.
'I do remember being in his room and it was just me and him. He said "I really want to kiss you" and I said "I really want to"'
Schoolgirl
She said that, as well as having sex, they would engage in other forms of sexual activity.
‘He asked me if it was OK. We’d already talked about having sex so that didn’t really seem like much of a difference,’ she said.
The girl said her friend found her relationship with the teacher ‘funny’, but added that friends warned her to make sure she used protection, to make sure it was what she wanted and also to be careful that she was not caught.
When asked by police if she thought or understood there to be a problem with the relationship she was having, she said there was ‘the teacher thing’, adding: ‘And obviously the age as well.’
She said that when their ages are put together there is a ‘bit of a difference’, and some may see it as a problem, adding: ‘For me it’s not.’
The girl admitted to police that it felt like a ‘relief’ that their relationship was finally out in the open.
‘I’ve never felt what me and Jeremy have done, or being in a relationship, is wrong, because it feels right,’ she said.
She said she understands why it is wrong from a legal perspective, and admitted that if she was looking at a similar couple she would think it is ‘not going to work’.
‘I don’t know how you’d have anything in common,’ she added.
But that was not the case for her and Forrest, as she said: ‘Age was literally the least thing I worried about. We spoke about the future and stuff and what we both wanted out of it.’
The girl said Forrest had similar views on their age gap. ‘It didn’t really seem to bother him either.
‘Sometimes I’d just have this weird realization, like “Oh my God, you’re double my age”,’ she said.
The girl said boys her own age did not interest her and that Forrest gave his blessing to her finding a younger boyfriend.
‘He did say to me “I’ll understand if you want to find a young boyfriend, like someone in your year”,’ she said, adding: ‘Obviously boys in my year are teenagers going through different things, something I wasn't attracted to.’
Hearing: Lewes Crown Court (file picture) heard that police were alerted to the relationship after a tip-off...
The girl said she and Forrest had ‘normal relationship problems’ which she described as ‘silly stuff’ such as her issues with him having a wife and she mentioned instances when he would see ‘another boy talking to me’.
The girl said they professed their love for each other around the time they shared their first kiss. ‘He didn’t say he loved me. He just said he was in love with me,’ she said.
The girl told the police about the various social media websites they interacted on and recalled how ‘sexual photos’ were also exchanged. ‘There was topless ones,’ she said.
The girl said she sent the first photo, adding: ‘I was just wearing a hooded jacket and underwear. Nothing was completely showing.’
She went on: ‘That was just because we were talking about becoming intimate. I didn’t really have a reason. I just wanted to send it so I did.’
The girl said Forrest was ‘really shocked’ by the photograph and added that he never asked her for pictures.
She spoke about events leading up to their disappearance to France and the call she received from her ‘calm’ sounding mother who asked her to come home following a visit by the authorities.
Immediately suspecting that the visit from a police and child protection officer related to their relationship, she went to see Forrest who was doing a revision class.
She said: ‘I was standing there shaking and was really concerned and panicking.’ She said Forrest told her to ‘tell them what you need to say’.
When she got home, her phone was confiscated by police for analysis and the girl said she denied everything as she did not want to get Forrest into trouble.
'We wanted to take things further and it was a natural thing. We had doubts. He felt so guilty about it'
Schoolgirl
‘It was much easier to say nothing and deny it all rather than sit there and drag it all out. The child protection officer and the police officer asked questions about sexual contact, pictures and texting and I denied everything.
‘The first thing I did after they left was to pack a bag and that's what I did. I was thinking of running away by myself. I packed clothes, underwear, toiletries and pyjamas and that was it.’
The girl said she was going to leave that night but then decided to think things through. The plan to go to France was ‘kind of my suggestion’ and she said she encouraged Forrest to go with her.
Forrest took out money the night before their disappearance and he said he would take some more out later. She said they had spoken about running away together before but only in a ‘jokey’ sense.
Ferry tickets were booked for them under his and his wife's name before they headed to the Port of Dover. En route, conversation was limited in the car, she said.
‘There wasn't much conversation, it was just focusing on getting to Dover and away from England,’ she said. ‘He was panicking a lot. Normally he was relaxed but his arms were tensing up and just the look on his face...
‘We were going to get caught for something that wasn't wrong. I suppose it is wrong but to us we didn't think it was.’
Before they boarded the ferry, one of the girl's friend's texted Forrest saying: ‘Can you look after her?’ Forrest replied: ‘Yeah, I promise I will.’
Appearing in court via video-link so she could be informed of what would happen this afternoon, the girl giggled and smiled.
As the footage from the police interviews resumed, she recalled an argument she had with Forrest in France over their whereabouts and his ability to get them to where they wanted to go.
‘It wasn't really like a full-on argument. It was tension, stress. Emotions coming out. We got lost and he ended up an hour and a half away from where we were supposed to be.
‘My faith in him getting us back was not very strong,’ she said.
The teenager said she questioned Forrest's ability to navigate and he got ‘firm’ with her. ‘He didn't shout but he just used a really firm tone.
‘He didn't swear or anything,’ she said, adding: ‘I've never heard him shout or use that tone.’
The girl said that was the closest they ever came to having an argument in France, and added that Forrest wrote her a note in the hotel room afterwards to apologize.
The note included the affectionate term ‘baby’ and had a smiley face which she said they often used in text messages. The girl said she would hold grudges a little, while Forrest ‘just gets over it and moves on’.
She said the details she chose to put on the CV she had created were ‘kind of like a fantasy’ and were ‘obviously exaggerated’.
Scots-born Forrest, of Petts Wood, Kent, denies child abduction. The trial continues.
Culled from The Daily Mail UK...
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Simply Cheska...
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