Female Teacher Jailed For Sex txts to World of Warcraft boy
A primary school teacher has been jailed for 12 months after she admitted sending a 14-year-old boy “crude and explicit” text messages.
Lynn Walls, 42, sent sexually explicit texts then came to rely on her young victim emotionally, even lying to say that she had breast cancer.
The offending caused lasting damage, Newcastle Crown Court heard, as the schoolboy came to feel withdrawn, guilty and even suicidal.
They first made contact on the World of Warcraft internet game after the plump defendant invented a “thin, attractive and blonde” character. After chatting online, they swapped mobile phone numbers, the court heard. Crucially, the London teenager told Walls his age, said Penny Moreland, prosecuting.
Walls sent texts inviting the boy to have sex with her, and commit sex acts. In other texts, Walls confided childhood problems, falsely claimed to have breast cancer, and confessed she loved him. Miss Moreland said the victim felt guilty as a result, and struggled to cope, being only 14.
The boy’s mother made a Victim Impact Statement in which she said the child, now 15, had changed dramatically since the offences in November 2007.
Miss Moreland said he had expressed suicidal thoughts, was abusive and had a “phobia of people”. His school attendance had deteriorated, and he was considering leaving when he turns 16. He and his family were being counselled as a result.
Walls, of Rose Street, Penshaw, Wearside, was a primary school teacher in Co Durham, and has a son herself. Judge Richard Lowden banned her from working with children for life, and put her on the Sex Offenders’ Register for 10 years.
At a previous hearing she admitted one count of enticing a child to engage in sexual activity.
Nick Peacock, defending, said his client accepted full responsibility. The case had “destroyed her days and haunted her nights” since her arrest, Mr Peacock said, and she accepted she was virtually “unemployable”.
