Female English teacher, 40, is jailed for having phone sex with lesbian pupil after the schoolgirl came out to her.

A teacher who started a sexual relationship and had 'phone sex' with a pupil after she came out as a lesbian has been jailed for 12 months.  

Helen Carter, 40, kissed the teenage pupil while working at Bromfords School in Wickford, Essex, and encouraged her to send sexually explicit images of herself. 

The disgraced teacher encouraged her to send pictures of her naked breast and used a heavily encrypted messaging application to swap messages.

Judge Jonathan Black described Carter's actions as a 'gross abuse of trust' as he jailed the former English teacher for 12 months at Basildon Crown Court, 'The victim described how you had become close, exchanging explicit sexual messages and texts.

'She described these messages in terms as 'having phone sex'.

'She also described how the relationship became more sexual.

'Each of you would send each other explicit sexual messages describing what you would do to the other sexually were you to live together. Source

'In some of these messages, you asked her if she was masturbating whilst sending the messages inciting her to masturbate.

'In my view, your behaviour towards this child in your care constitutes a gross abuse of trust.'

Carter started working at Bromfords School - a large secondary school with more than 1,000 pupil - as an English teacher in September 2012.

The under-fire school was rated as 'requires improvement' by Ofsted in November last year. 

Past pupils include Big Brother winners Brian Belo and Chantelle Houghton.

The court heard how a relationship had grown between the lesbian teacher and the victim after she came out to her at school.

Miss Nneka Akudolu, prosecuting, said: 'She said she had approached Miss Carter and had come out to her as she would go to her if she had any problems.

'It was not long after Miss Carter had declared she was also gay that they struck up a friendship.

'She had just broken up with her girlfriend and had fallen out with her best friend.

'At the time, the defendant was pretty much her only friend.'

The friendship developed into an illicit relationship with sexually explicit messages being shared over internet app, Telegram.

The social messaging app is heavily encrypted and can be set to automatically destroy messages after a set period of time.

The disgraced teacher at Bromfords School in Wickford, Essex incited her to send pictures of her naked breast and used a heavily encrypted messaging application, to swap messages

Family of the teenage victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, became suspicious and discovered a selection of incriminating messages when checking her iPad.

Miss Akudolu continued: 'The Crown would assert this was a vulnerable individual but I'm not sure if I can say she was targeted.

'There is a question mark if she was groomed.'

In one of the messages the victim offered to buy Carter a birthday cake adding: 'When we're laying together and we wake up in each other's arms we'll smear each other with cake.'

Mike Warren, mitigating, said his client had struggled with the stress of her first teaching position and was 'emotionally fragile'.

'Not wishing to speak ill of the school, it was a school that had special measures issues and she found it difficult to cope.

'She was a fairly isolated person and the victim seemed to gain as much from the friendship with the defendant as the defendant did with her.

'She does not seek to put any blame on the victim and acknowledges this is her own fault.'

Carter admitted four counts of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust, three counts of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity by a person in a position of trust and one count of making indecent images of a child.

The former teacher was also placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years and was made the subject of a sexual offence prevention order for 10 years.