Clause 24 - Positions of trust: interpretation
Sexual Offences Bill [Lords]
3:30 pm
Mr Paul Goggins (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wythenshawe and Sale East, Labour)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. Her question has two answers. First, the supply teacher who takes over from the regular classroom teacher and has the regular contact with the child could be said to have a relationship that reoccurs regularly. Secondly, a supply teacher may teach children in a school, which has a sixth form. There may be a 17-year-old in the school who does not meet the teacher in the school and is never taught by him. We would not want to capture that teacher under
the clause, because there is no regular contact by definition of the child being at that school and the teacher being a supply teacher at the school.
The hon. Lady is looking quizzical, so perhaps I have not persuaded her of my argument. I repeat that the supply teacher who takes over the full-blown, regular relationship with the pupil in the class is clearly caught under the Bill. As for the teacher who goes to the school as a supply teacher and who never comes across the 17-year-old with whom he may take up a sexual relationship, that is a different relationship. There is no regularity in such contact.