Teacher jailed for sexually abusing teenage boy

A former teacher has been jailed for four and a half years after admitting to having sex with a teenage boy.

Emily Drury, 26, was sentenced at Lincoln Crown Court after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to five charges of sexual activity with the boy.

A victim impact statement from the boy, read out in court, said he went through something "no child should ever have to experience".

In mitigation, barrister Jeremy James described Drury's offending as an "uncharacteristic, fantastical relationship" as a form of "escaping the reality of her life".

On sentencing, Judge James House KC said Drury had "failed to fully accept the magnitude of harm caused" to the boy.

He said, on reading the character references she had supplied in defence, he could see her "kindness and compassion", but said the offending had come from a place of "her own selfish desires".

In his victim impact statement, the boy said the abuse had left him feeling "unable to simply enjoy being a child" and he "still lives with the consequences every day".

He said he had "believed there was a stigma attached to being the male victim of sexual abuse", that he "still finds it hard to trust people", and now avoids social situations.

Speaking after the sentencing, Det Con Julie Jode of Lincolnshire Police said the victim had showed "exceptional courage, dignity, and resilience" during the investigation.

She said Drury had "exploited the access she had to a vulnerable young person for her own purposes".

Jode added: "As an adult in a position of authority, she was expected to provide guidance, support, and protection.

"Instead, she used that position to target and manipulate someone who should have been able to trust her implicitly."

As well as the prison sentence, Drury was given a sexual harm prevention order and a restraining order to last five years, and was placed on the sex offenders' register for 10 years.

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