NOTTINGHAM TUTOR JAILED FOR GROOMING AND SEXUAL ABUSE OF PUPIL
A married college tutor from Nottingham groomed a vulnerable girl he was teaching before starting a sexual relationship with her.Nottingham Crown Court heard how father-of-two Stephen Gill taught at both New College and Nottingham Trent University.
When he was teaching at the university, he took the girl into a booth where they were caught by another staff member, who raised suspicions and Gill lost his job.
Years later, the victim disclosed to the authorities what had happened.
Judge Michael Auty KC sentenced him to a year in prison and placed him on the sex offender register for 10 years.
The judge stated: “You are a 57-year-old man with a hitherto good character and you threw that good character away, no one else did.
I have every sympathy for your poor wife and children.
Ordinarily, I am someone that does whatever he can to take a merciful course but we need to start by looking at what actually took place.
She was 17, you were in your 40s, there was a massive age difference between the two of you.
She was a child, you were an adult.
You knew what you were doing, you knew it was wrong and you continued to do it.” Prosecutor Annabel Lenton explained that Gill targeted the girl as she was particularly vulnerable, with the relationship developing into a fully sexual one before she had engaged in any sexual activity with anyone else.
Gill, at the time, was a tutor at New College in Nottingham and also worked at Nottingham Trent University, where he engaged in sexual acts in booths, some of which were painful.
The victim only disclosed what happened many years later, after her therapist alerted the authorities.
Gill pleaded guilty to abuse while in a position of trust and was consequently sentenced to prison.
His wife and two children supported him through this period.
Besides the prison sentence, the court also mandated that he register as a sex offender for a decade.
