A TEACHER from Co. Antrim has been jailed for the sexual abuse of a teenage pupil.
At Laganside Court in Belfast on Friday, 33-year-old Judith Evans from Newtownabbey was sentenced to two years in prison and two years on licence.
The mother-of-two, a former teacher at a Belfast high school, pleaded guilty to seven child sexual abuse offences relating to a 14-year-old boy.
These included one count of sexual communications with a child, three of meeting a child following sexual grooming, sexual activity involving penetration with a child between 13 and 16 and possessing an indecent photograph of a child.
She also pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice.
"Evans is a cold, calculating child predator who abused her position of trust by taking advantage of a young boy," said Detective Chief Inspector Jill Duffie of the PSNI.
'Sickening'
According to BBC News, Evans' offending occurred between March and May 2024 when the boy was going through a 'hard time'.
Evans began to keep him behind at school, when she noticed a change in his demeanour.
The boy opened up to the teacher, who gave him her personal phone number and email address.
The pair began messaging each other, with the judge noting that from an early stage, the messages were of a sexual nature.
Evans and the boy ultimately exchanged thousands of messages, the content of which DCI Duffie described as 'sickening'.
BBC News adds that the pair met three times outside of school and Evans drove the boy to locations where they engaged in sexual activity, including intercourse.
When the offending was reported to police, Evans was arrested and initially answered 'no comment' to questions, before falsely claiming in a later police interview that the boy had raped her.
'Grooming'
Speaking outside court on Friday, DCI Duffie said that Evans had preyed on the boy's vulnerabilities and 'built an inappropriate "friendship" with the boy before then further grooming him and sexually exploiting him'.
"The messages exchanged between her and her underage pupil were highly sexual and nothing short of sickening," she added.
"As a result of the abuse he was subjected to, the victim has suffered greatly with mental health struggles and has shown immense bravery to bring her to justice today."
Evans was also placed on the Sex Offenders' Register indefinitely and will be subject to a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) for five years.
See More: Belfast, Newtownaabbey
