A FIFTH member of staff at a scandal-hit Yorkshire school where there have been several affairs between teachers and pupils has been charged over an alleged relationship with a 15-year-old girl.
Christopher Reen, 31, a non-teaching member of staff at Headlands School in Bridlington, is accused of seven counts of sexual acts with the girl between July and September last year.
He did not enter a plea when he appeared before magistrates in B
ridlington and was bailed to appear at Hull Crown Court next Wednesday.
East Riding Council said Reen was sacked after working for the authority for three months last year.
In 2006, senior art teacher Ian Blott was jailed for four years after he "pressured" a schoolgirl into having sex and left her with an eating disorder.
Less than a year later, science teacher Steven Edwards was sentenced to nearly five years in jail after being convicted of having sexual activity or intercourse with three pupils aged between 14 and 16 over four years.
In January last year former Headlands teacher Terry Mann was given a suspended sentence after admitting having a sexual relationship with a pupil from Withernsea High School in East Yorkshire. A teaching assistant was later given a conditional
discharge after conducting an "inappropriate relationship" with a teenage boy at Headlands.
The school was put in special measures by education watchdog Ofsted last year after it was found to be failing to provide its 1,500 pupils with an acceptable standard of education.
Parents were more troubled by a 2008 report compiled by the East Riding Safeguarding Children Board, which found that there had been a persistent failure to protect pupils over a 14-year period.
The study said that concerns about the behaviour of Blott dated back to 1993. It said there were at least six occasions when complaints of inappropriate behaviour by staff were ignored.
That resulted in a culture emerging at the school "which resulted in confusion for staff and pupils about professional boundaries", the report said.
The inquiry was sparked after Blott, a married father-of-two, admitted having a two-and-a-half-year affair with the girl three months after her 15th birthday.
During his trial it was revealed that the pair first had full intercourse on a school trip, which Blott claimed he arranged especially for her.
They also had sex and engaged in other sexual acts on numerous occasions, including in a school cupboard, in Blott's home and his car and in the steam room of a gym.
Blott, who had been teaching for 33 years, claimed that he
had been "cajoled and seduced" by the schoolgirl, but this
was rejected by the judge at the trial, who said it was more likely that Blott had been grooming her.
The girl began having trouble sleeping, suffered from nightmares and developed bulimia nervosa. She went on to self-harm and was eventually admitted for treatment at a psychiatric unit.
Edwards had twice been warned by police and the school headmaster about his inappropriate behaviour towards schoolgirls.
The prosecution during Edwards's trial said that the case was "very similar" to that of Blott.
A spokesman for East Riding Council said of the Reen case: "The school and the local authority have co-operated fully with the Humberside Police in their investigations and there will be no further comment until the court proceedings have concluded."
