Married Teacher Screams As She's Jailed For Sex With Schoolboy, 16
A married teacher who had sex with a schoolboy screamed as she was jailed for a year yesterday.
Lauren Cox, 27, said “I’m sorry” to her tearful family, before a heated exchange took place between her mother and the boy’s mum.
The victim’s mother said to Cox’s tearful mum: “I didn’t have a choice, he is my son.”
Cox’s mum replied: “You did have a choice. How do you sleep at night?”
Judge Adam Hiddleston jailed Cox for 12 months at Croydon Crown Court after commending the boy’s mother’s handling of the situation.
He said Cox kept the relationship secretive, but the boy’s suspicious mum spotted him getting into her car. She then contacted the teacher, telling her to resign and never see her boy again.
But after his mum agreed to let Cox break the news to the boy, the teacher went on to have sex with him again which the judge described as “a flagrant breach of trust instilled in you by his mother.”
Judge Hiddleston accepted that she groomed the boy, having known him before he turned 16.
He said: “The effect on the victim has been considerable. He described how you emphasised the need for secrecy which led him to distance himself from his friends and family. The constant need to lie led to him becoming depressed.”
Guilty: Lauren Cox has known the boy since he was 13, beginning a sexual relationship with him when he was 16 (SWNS)
The judge took into account Cox’s guilty plea, and the fact that she had destroyed her chances in the career she had excelled in.
He said: “I don’t believe I would be doing my duty if I did not send out a message loud and clear that betrayal in this situation must result in an immediate custodial sentence.”
A source close to the investigation said the victim’s mum appeared to give Cox a chance when in August she told her to hand in her resignation, but then got police involved.
He said: "The boy didn’t want her to go to prison. He loved her. The mum engineered it all.
"When Lauren finished it in August and handed in her resignation was the second the police got involved. The boy definitely wouldn’t have done it. The boy was in love with her.
"The mum engineered it completely. She was angry because she wanted him to become a doctor and he wanted to become a teacher. She thought he had been influenced by Lauren.”
Cox, who cried throughout the hearing, wrote an impassioned letter to the judge apologising for her actions.
In it, she wrote: “I fell in love, I made him happy and the feeling, I believe, was mutual.
"If there’s even a minuscule chance of me being able to resurrect my career I will fight for it with everything I have.”
Cox, of Oxted, Surrey, will be placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for 10 years. She and her husband Andrew, 30, are divorcing.
