Teacher jailed over relationship with teen

A MARRIED teacher who began a sexual relationship with a girl when she was just 14 has been jailed for two years and eight months.

Richard Taylor, 39, met the teenager at a Christian group he helped to run in Aberdeenshire, where she viewed him as a trusted spiritual adviser.

Taylor would regularly sneak off with the girl and encourage her to take part in sex acts after the abuse began in the summer of 2002. A consensual sexual relationship continued in secret after the girl turned 16 and continued for another two years.

Taylor, of Canmore Park, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, previously admitted one charge of acting in a lewd and libidinous manner towards the girl between 14 June, 2002, and 20 July, 2003.

Judge Lord Turnbull, sitting at the High Court in Edinburgh, told Taylor his behaviour was a "gross breach of trust". He said: "Children given into the trust of others for educational, religious or social purposes require to be protected from adult sexual desires."

The court heard that, after they first met, Taylor showed an interest in the girl's life and would talk to her frequently.

In June 2002, when she was 14, he picked her up in his car after she sneaked out of her house.

During the evening, he performed a sex act on the girl and said he wished he could take her home to bed.