Teacher sneaked into pupil’s house when mother was out to have sex with her

A teacher accused of having sex with a pupil used a side door to sneak into her house while her mother was out and avoid the Ring doorbell, a court heard.

Ieuan Bartlett, 29, a high school teacher and welfare officer where the teenage girl was a student, “nurtured” a sexual relationship with her, the court was told.

He had sex with the “vulnerable” girl and “pressured her” into sending him naked photos of herself.

Bartlett pleaded guilty to 12 counts of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust, including sexual intercourse with the girl.

His guilty pleas came after an earlier jury failed to reach a verdict. Bartlett was due to stand retrial but changed his pleas to admit the sex crimes.

Matthew Cobbe, prosecuting, said in the previous trial, Bartlett was the teacher the girl had “turned to for support” in his role as a welfare officer but he abused his position.

Mr Cobbe continued: “Mr Bartlett took advantage of his role. He gained her trust and her confidence and for the first few months of getting to know her, he built an ever closer bond with her.

“It’s the prosecution’s case that he began a sexual relationship with her. This case is about that sexual relationship.”

Mr Cobbe said the girl began seeing Bartlett in a one-on-one role at the high school where he worked.

“It was that privacy, that isolation that allowed the defendant to build on the bond that he was creating, nurturing with her ultimately causing her to think that he had fallen for her and that she was in a loving relationship with him,” he said.

She was just 16 when he asked for sex pictures and sex took place during the school holidays in August 2021.

The girl told police Bartlett would hug and kiss her and tell her he wanted a relationship with her. He told her he wanted to move in with her when she left college.

She told officers he would “constantly say he loves me and loves everything about me” and that he wanted to book hotel rooms for them to have sex in.

The girl said she had unprotected sex with Bartlett at her home after the school term had ended for summer in August 2021.

Cardiff Crown Court heard he entered and left through the side door of the house so he wasn’t captured by the Ring doorbell camera.

Bartlett was arrested and interviewed twice by police and originally denied any sexual relationship with the pupil during the school term but had accepted that on Aug 15, after school term had ended, he went round to her house and had sex with her.

Mr Cobbe said: “The text messages put into context the relationship taking place between them and make it plain it was a longer lasting sexual relationship.”

Mr Cobbe said Bartlett asked the girl for naked pictures after term had ended “spelling out to her what he wants despite her obvious reluctance”.

He added: “She was 16 at the time and his possession of those images was and is an offence regardless of whether they were sent or exchanged during school term.”

The girl said she was “pressured” to send nudes and would “cry when sending pictures of myself”.

Defending Bartlett, Sophie Standard told the court that the earlier trial had “serious consequences” to his mental health and he was undergoing counselling.

Bartlett previously admitted to possessing an indecent image of the girl.

Judge Lucy Crowther remanded Bartlett into custody and he will next appear at Cardiff Crown Court for sentencing on Friday May 3.