A MARRIED teacher who had a fling with a 16-year-old pupil avoided prison
yesterday — because they only snogged.
Mum-of-three Bernadette Smith, 35, also admitted stripping half-naked and
cuddling in bed with schoolboy Gary Ralston.
Sheriff Wyllie Roberston told her she had committed a serious abuse of trust
when she appeared in the dock yesterday for sentencing.
But he allowed her to walk free with a community payback order after agreeing
her “humiliation was complete”.
The lawman said: “Let me make it absolutely clear, however, it would not have
taken your conduct to have gone much further for a prison sentence to be
inevitable.”
Shamed history teacher Smith, of Denny, Stirlingshire, earlier admitted sexual
activity with the boy while in a position of trust.
Stirling Sheriff Court heard she shared a bed with Gary at his nearby home in
Cowie and kissed him in a park last September.
Smith was later sacked from Bannockburn High, Stirling. Sheriff Robertson
added: “You have lost your reputation, your job and your career, and your
marriage is at an end.
“You caused distress to your immediate family and, with the media attention
that this case has attracted, I suspect that your humiliation is complete.
“I have no material before me that suggests there is any long-standing adverse
impact on the victim.
“It is not necessary to impose a prison sentence for this offence.”
Last night Gary, now 17, said he was glad Smith — who gave him after-school
tutoring — was not caged.
He said: “I saw on Facebook that she had not been jailed.
“The judge was fair. She didn’t deserve the jail for what she did. I don’t
bother about it any more.”
Besotted Smith told colleagues she was in love with the teen.
But after she admitted the offences in November Gary said: “I got into bed
with my boxers on. She took off her top, but kept her bra and jeans on.
“We cuddled and talked — nothing else happened.”
Smith was put under a supervision order for two years and will remain on the
sex offenders’ register for 24 months.