Gets Two Years for Grooming Student
A Birmingham school teacher has been given a two year jail sentence for grooming a student with learning difficulties.
28-year-old Amardip Bhopari of Foley Road East, Streetly, “showered gifts on the 16-year-old boy and also plied him with drink.” She also admitted three charges of sexual activity with a child, was also told to register as a sex offender for 10 years.
Prosecuting at Birmingham Crown Court, Judge James Burbidge QC said “I do not suggest you sought him out as vulnerable.
“However as a teacher you owed him a duty of care that all teachers must owe to a child. “You had sex with him in public places, on an industrial estate and hotels and you also provided him with experiences that, as a 16-year-old, meant that he would be attached to you.”
Amardip Bhopari had started working at the school, which catered for pupils with learning difficulties or behavioural problems, in December 2012. Hugh O’Brien Quinn, prosecuting, said “there was an occasion when the victim, who was in the teacher’s art class, wrote his phone number on the back of a piece of paper and she subsequently rang him.” Mr O’Brien Quinn said “the conversation was sexual and over the next few nights there were further calls.”
The first physical contact took place just before Valentine’s day in 2013, when Bhopari texted the boy and told him to meet her in the art room before classes began, where she performed a sexual act on him. Further sexual activity took place at an industrial estate near the school and they went on to have sexual intercourse in the teacher’s car on a number of occasions while they also had sex at her home.”
Mr O’Brien Quinn said although the boy had shown no interest in any kind of relationship, Bhopari continued to contact him regularly and ask him to meet up. “Bhopari had also taken the teenager to Drayton Manor Park where she paid for everything he wanted and that she had also allowed him to drive her car even though he did not have a licence.”
There came a stage when the victim began a relationship with a girl more appropriate to his age, but when he told Bhopari they should end their relationship she made it plain she wanted it to go on. Matters came to light in December 2013 and Bhopari was arrested.”
John Smitheman, defending, stated Bhopari, “was full of remorse.” He said “She fell in love with this young man, they had a relationship. She knew that it was wrong but it happened.”
Mandy Sanghera Human Rights Activist has been supporting vulnerable adults for the last 25 years, she said,
“I am hoping this sentence will send a clear message to our community about abuse, Many vulnerable adults are suffering in silence as they don’t know who too turn to.
“This was a nothing but abuse of power and position grooming and befriending a vulnerable child for personal gain
people have been shocked by this case, sadly women do abuse and we need to talk more openly about such issues.
“It has taken over a year to get justice and I welcome the sentence”
