Jailed For Having Sex With Minor, UK Teacher Banned From Teaching

In 2021, a UK-based teacher Kandice Barber was convicted of child abuse as she had coerced a 15-year-old boy to have sex with her on a field. Barber was sentenced to six years and two months in jail. This week, she has also been banned from re-entering the profession for life. 

35-year-old Barber was found guilty on January 29. She was then kept in judicial custody and had also been denied bail. The Crown Prosecution Service(CPS) of the UK said that Barber had met the teenage boy outside of school and had taken him to a field to engage in sexual activity.

In September last year, Kandice Barber was convicted of sending nude pictures to the boy on Snapchat but she was later acquitted. It was also put on the Amersham Law Court's notice that the woman had threatened the teenage boy. She had told him that she would "bring him down with her" if their sexual relationship came to light and the fact that Barber was pregnant with his child. She later had a miscarriage but had allegedly continued threatening the boy.

According to the prosecutor Richard Milne, Kandice Barber had asked for the boy's phone and had added herself to his Snapchat. The teenager had found it "a bit weird". When he started feeling worried and got scared as their relationship was no longer a secret, that is when Barber told him to "deny everything" and "delete all the messages", the prosecutor said.

The National Society of Prevention to Cruelty To Children, a charity organisation working for child protection in the UK, released its statement on the case. The spokesperson said, "Barber, as a teacher, would have been well aware of the vulnerability of young people and it was her duty to safeguard those in her care". He added that Barber instead "exploited her position of trust to groom and abuse this teenage boy for her own sexual gratification".