Cardiff teacher 'nurtured' sexual relationship with pupil

Cardiff Crown Court heard high school teacher Ieuan Bartlett, 29, secretly went through the side door of the girl’s house to avoid her mum's doorbell camera.

The court heard Bartlett knew the Ring camera would spot him at the front door so he always used the side door instead.

Bartlett was trusted as a welfare officer at the high school where the teenage girl was a student - but "nurtured" a sexual relationship with her.

A court heard he had sex with the "vulnerable" girl and "pressured her" into sending him naked selfies.

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.

Prosecutor Matthew Cobbe said, in the previous trial, that 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 said: "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."

‘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 and 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.

The girl also said she and Bartlett had performed sex acts on each other and had full sex during the school term.

Mr Cobbe said text messages made it "crystal clear" they were talking about "sex they have previously had and enjoyed" during the term.

He said the messages referred to "sex positions that they had enjoyed and why they had enjoyed those positions."

‘Reluctance’

Bartlett was arrested and interviewed twice by police but declined to answer any of the questions put to him.

He originally went on to deny any sort of sexual relationship with the pupil during the school term, but had accepted that on August 15, after school term had ended, that 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 wold "cry when sending pictures of myself".

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

Bartlett, of Whitchurch, Cardiff, pleaded guilty to 12 counts of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust.

He 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.