Teacher had sex with teen student, blackmailed him about her pregnancy and sent topless pics that went viral
A married teacher had sex with a teenage student, told him she was pregnant with his child, and sent him topless pictures of herself on Snapchat that were then circulated around their school, a court heard. Kandice Barber, 35, was arrested by authorities in March 2019 after the explicit photos of her that were making the rounds came to the attention of the headmaster at the secondary school in Buckinghamshire where she worked, according to the Daily Mail.
Now facing a series of charges involving the boy and including breaching a position of trust, Barber made her first appearance at the Aylesbury Crown Court this past week, where jurors heard details of the crimes committed by the teacher, who has school-age children of her own.
Richard Milne, prosecuting, said it all started after a sports awards evening on September 27, 2018, when Barber came over to the victim and asked to borrow his phone before entering her details into his Snapchat account. "Things developed on her part by her sending him messages," he told the jury. "She would tell him she was having a bath or a shower and then ask him if he wanted to meet."
One day, Milne said she drove over to the teen's home and asked him to get into her car before driving to a field, where they had sex. Afterward, she sent him topless photos of herself, which would leak to the rest of the school and, eventually, find its way to the headmaster. The prosecutor told the court that the experience was a stressful one for the victim. "He (the victim) was not proud of what happened, he was not showing off, it was not some sort of fantasy," Milne said." He was extremely concerned and nervous when the rumors were going around."
In a video interview with the Aylesbury police on March 11, 2019, the victim, who has not been named to protect his identity, shared he and Barber did not have sex after his 16th birthday but continued messaging each other, only stopping after school staff found out.
Asked why he had initially denied an affair when questioned by the headmaster, he said the 35-year-old had tried to emotionally blackmail him. "I lied because she had told me she could be pregnant with my child and I began to panic," he said. "I lied to pretty much everyone except my friends. She said that if I was going to snitch, snake on her basically, she was going to bring me down with her. I was like, are you going to accuse me of rape? She was like, dot dot dot. Obviously I got angry and I did not talk to her after that."
One day after the interview, Barber was arrested and denied having any sexual relations with the boy. She claimed her pregnancy was widely known around the school and that the father was her husband. However, she went on to admit having sent a naked picture to the teen to a social worker who visited her home but insisted she only did so because she was going through a difficult time after a miscarriage.
"She said that she was going through a bad patch with her husband, that she was pregnant but lost the child, they wanted another but it was not happening," Milne told the jury. "Things were strained between her and her husband. The boy had paid her attention and she had let her guard down and started to talk to him."
Barber has denied three counts of causing or inciting a child aged under 16 years to engage in a sexual act, one count of sexual communication with a child, one count of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activities while in a position of trust and one count of causing a child to watch a sexual act by a person in a position of trust.