Description
A West Lothian high school teacher who had a six month sexual relationship with a teenage schoolboy has been jailed for 14 months.
Jacqueline Millar, 36, met the pupil at the school she taught at before meeting up with him for sex in her car at a secluded wooded area and at her home in Livingston. Edinburgh Sheriff Court was also told the boy claimed he and the disgraced teacher - who previously taught religious studies - had sex in the school after she had covered up the windows of a classroom.
The illicit relationship was only discovered when Millar was forced to call 999 following an altercation between her and the teenager at her home in March last year. The boy was taken into police custody following the incident and during an interview told an officer that he and the teacher had been in a sexual relationship for several months.
Millar returned to the dock for sentencing at the capital court yesterday (WED) after previously pleading guilty where Sheriff Derek OCarroll described her behaviour as an abuse of your position. Sheriff OCarroll said there had been a considerable degree of planning on Millars behalf and added the case was a very tragic one, particularly for you.
The sheriff said: I very much regret to say in my view regarding the gravity of the offence and your culpability, despite all that has been said in mitigation, there is in my view no alternative to a custodial sentence.
Millar was jailed for 14 months and was placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years. The sheriff said Millars name will also be forwarded to Scottish Ministers to be included on the list of people banned from working with children and vulnerable adults in the future.
Advocate Sarah Livingstone, defending, said her client knew she had committed a very serious offence but that she is not a sexual predator. Ms Livingstone said: She is not someone who set out to sexually abuse the complainer.
She accepts what she did was wrong and accepts full responsibility for it.
Millar pleaded guilty to engaging in sexual activity with a person under 18 while she was in a capacity as a teacher. She pled guilty to kissing him, cuddling him, uttering sexual remarks towards him, sending social media messages and texts of a sexual nature, and repeatedly having sexual intercourse with him at various locations between August 1, 2021 and February 8 last year.
Previously the court was told Millar started at the Lothians high school, which cannot be identified for legal reasons, as a teacher in philosophical, religious and moral studies July 2017. She was then promoted to a separate department and was described in court as a high-flyer and a competent, knowledgable and dedicated professional.
Prosecutor Susan Dickson said Millar first met the pupil at the school in 2020 and concerns were raised by teaching colleagues who believed the relationship was putting her in a difficult position. The court was told Millar and the pupil first kissed in her car after she had picked him up from a football training session in August 2021.
The boy said it was the teacher who initiated the kiss but Millar later claimed it was the lad who had kissed her first. Two weeks later Millar and the pupil drove to a wooded area in East Lothian where she was said to have removed her clothes and sexual intercourse occurred in her car while he was under the legal age of consent.
The court was also told the pair then entered into a relationship and they met up for sex sessions at her home on a regular basis. Ms Dickson said Millar and the boy also had sex within a classroom at the school where she had put paper over the windows to avoid being seen.