Married teacher, 35, who had outdoor sex with her 15-year-old pupil after sending him flirty Snapchat messages is jailed for over six years as victim says ordeal ruined his GCSE results
- Kandice Barber, 35, was found to have taken the underage boy to a field for sex
- She had lied at court it had never happened and gave number of bizarre excuses
- But she was convicted before being jailed today at Aylesbury Crown Court
A married teacher who who had outdoor sex with her 15-year-old pupil has been jailed for six years and two months.
Kandice Barber, 35, was found to have taken the underage boy to a field, kissed him on the neck next to a bale of hay and whispered, ‘What do you want to do now?’ before having full intercourse with him.
The mother-of-three’s lawyer had claimed she was too short at just 5ft tall to have sex with the boy standing up as the teacher lied that her packed calendar meant she was ‘too busy’ to have slept with him.
Jailing her Recorder Bal Dhaliwal said: ‘You acted in gross breach of trust. You took advantage of a child in your care and groomed him for your own sexual gratification.’
She had bombarded him with messages including one where she asked him ‘Do you like boobs or bum?’, and sent him a photo of herself on a bed surrounded by sex toys.
But Barber – who was sentenced at Aylesbury Crown Court- was found out after a topless pictures she had sent her victim was circulated around so much it ended up being passed to the head teacher of their school.
Today the pupil – who cannot be named – said the ordeal had impacted his GCSE results.
Mother-of-three and teacher Kandice Barber, 25, sent topless selfies to her underage victim
Prosecutor David Povall summarised a statement from the victim, who said he faced stress and anxiety as a result of the incidents and going through two trials.
He continued: “He was at school and it was through his presence at school that he came into contact with this defendant, who was working there in a position of trust.
“He feels that his GCSE results were not as good as they should have been, in part as a result of the impact of these incidents on him.
“As a result of his poorer-than-expected GCSE results he had to leave the good school he was attending and go to a sixth-form college where none of his friends were.
“In summary, he says that the defendant … who was supposed to help students make the right decisions instead helped him to make all the wrong decisions.”
This was Barber’s second trial, after she was convicted in September of sending the boy topless pictures of herself on Snapchat between September and October 2018 but acquitted of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity while in a position of trust.
The supply teacher, of Wendover, Bucks, was found guilty of one count of causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity. She was found not guilty of two further counts of the same charge.
Barber had shown no emotion when the verdicts were announced following 10 hours and 39 minutes of jury deliberation, staring blankly across the courtroom.
Her delivery worker husband, Daniel, had watched proceedings remotely in a side room, fumed after the guilty verdict: ‘It’s a joke.’ When Barber emerged at the court entrance after her trial he gripped her hand the moment he saw her.
Barber’s husband, Daniel, held his wife’s hand as they left court after the guilty verdict
Nadia Chbatt, Barber’s barrister, was carrying out a different professional commitment, so the judge had given the teacher bail and let her walk free from court before her sentencing.
The judge told Barber: ‘I am not going to proceed to sentence immediately. I totally accept that you should have Ms Chbatt, who was your trial counsel, present.’
Earlier the court heard how Barber, a supply teacher at the Princes Risborough School in Buckinghamshire, had approached her victim at a sports day event when she added him as a ‘friend’ on social media.
She then started texting the boy – said to be ‘obsessed’ with her – and would tell him when she was ‘hopping into the shower’ or ‘taking a bath’.
By then Barber had arranged to meet him and had sex with him behind the back of her devoted delivery firm worker husband Daniel.
In court she had lied her busy schedule on that day meant it would have been impossible.
She also told the boy she would ‘bring him down with her’ if the relationship was discovered, and that she was pregnant with his child, the court heard.
The jury were told of text messages between Barber and the boy. Some read:
‘Do you like boobs or bum?’
‘You have a bigger penis than my husband’
‘When I’m teaching, let’s see if we can make each other the horniest we can without the others knowing’
‘You cannot make me blush when I am teaching now, poker face’
In a previous trial in September last year at Aylesbury, Barber was convicted by a majority verdict of 10 to two of sexual communication with a child between Sep 27, 2018, and October 20, 2018, relating to topless pictures she sent to the same victim.
She was also convicted by the same majority verdict of causing a child to watch a sexual act by a person in a position of trust, from October 20, 2018, to January 31, 2019, where she sent the victim a video of herself performing a sex act while surrounded by sex toys at a time when the victim was aged 16 years.
Barber had been acquitted of one count of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity by a person in a position of trust during the same dates.
Jurors at Aylesbury Crown Court heard previously how the teacher, who has school-age children of her own, had later met up with the boy for two other illicit trysts and sent him pictures of herself topless, which were then widely shared around the Princes Risborough School.
Richard Milne, opening the case for the prosecution, said: ‘It all started at a sports evening on September 27, 2018, when she came over to him and asked to borrow his phone. She had possession of his phone and she put her details into his Snapchat account. He thought it was a bit weird.
Barber faces a prison sentence after being found guilty of having sex with the schoolboy
Teacher’s internet and phone search history
Kandice Barber’s internet history and phone contents were a big part of both of her trials.
Jurors heard at her first hearing mention a Snapchat folder which was password-protected called ‘My Eyes Only’. Her search history was also flagged as significant by prosecutors.
In September she googled ‘what is the name of someone you are having an affair with?’. She went on to look under the terms ‘alibi’, and ‘when you have a plan of where you have been’.
Barber had claimed she had been trying to work out the name of Fatal Attraction, a film about a married man having an affair with a woman who becomes obsessed with him.
The teacher also looked for ‘a lie of where you have been’ as well as ‘good secluded areas’ and ‘Holiday Inn, Wycombe’.
‘Things developed on her part by her sending him messages.
‘She would tell him she was having a bath or a shower and then ask him if he wanted to meet.’
The court was told that Barber had sex with the boy and then later sent him topless pictures of herself, which were shown to the jury.
By the start of last year, the headmaster at the Princes Risborough School had come into possession of one of the topless pictures, which were circulating along with rumours of the affair.
Evidence given by other children at the school was that Barber had sent text messages to the boy asking, ‘do you like boobs or bum?’ and informing him he ‘had a bigger penis than her husband.’
In another message she told him: ‘When I’m teaching you, let’s see if we can make each other the horniest we can without the others knowing’.
Daniel Barber, Kandice’s husband, had appeared as a witness in her defence twice where he described her as his ‘rock’ and said their relationship was ‘as strong as ever’, pointing out to jurors that he had matching tattoos with his wife of four years.
Barber’s mother, Dawn Green, had also appeared to defend her in the first trial, stating the mother-of-three had told her ‘I know I have been silly mum’ but said she believed her daughter after she swore on her life that no sexual activity had taken place with the boy.
Barber and her husband Daniel in happier times before the arrest and court cases happened
A social worker attended Barber’s home on March 13, 2019, and assessed her, because she lived with young children including her husband’s two from previous relationships but during the visit Barber accepted having sent a naked picture to the boy.
Teacher arrested at school before lessons
Kandice Barber had arrived at Princes Risborough School just after 6.30am on March 12, 2019, expecting a normal day of lessons.
But she found officers and a police car waiting for her before any of the children had arrived for the day ahead.
They had been tipped off by headteacher Nicholas Simms who spoke to the boy a day earlier to confirm rumours of what had happened.
Barber was arrested by Detective Constable Collette Parker, a Thames Valley Police specialist in child abuse.
DC Parker told how Barber had looked like she was going into shock as the was detained.
The office told the jury: ‘I arrested her on suspicion of abuse of trust and sexual activity with a child.
‘She went white and was shaking, I seized her mobile phone and she was then taken to be interviewed.’
Under interview Barber had a written statement which said: ‘I categorically deny that I have ever had sexual intercourse with this boy. I have never seen him naked and he has never seen me naked.’
Mr Milne told the jury: ‘She said that she was going through a bad patch with her husband, that she was pregnant but lost the child, they wanted another but it was not happening.
‘Things were strained between her and her husband. The boy had paid her attention and she had let her guard down and started to talk to him.’
The court heard how the social worker had visited Barber again and the defendant had asked that what she had said not be included in any official reporting, adding she would deny having said it.
In a video interview with police given on March 11 last year, the boy claimed the two had continued messaging for months after he turned 16 years old, only stopping because the school staff found out.
The complainant added that when called in to speak to his headmaster, he had initially denied that he had sex with Barber.
Speaking to a member of the child abuse team at Aylesbury police station, the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: ‘She said that if I was going to snitch, snake on her basically, she was going to bring me down with her. I was like, are you going to accuse me of rape? She was like, dot dot dot. Obviously I got angry and I did not talk to her after that.’
Barber was arrested on March 12 last year and during the interview she produced a prepared statement where she denied having sex with the boy, claimed her pregnancy was widely known around the school – although she later lost the baby and the father was her husband.
Barber was found guilty of one count of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity between September 27 and October 20 2018.
In a previous trial she was convicted of sexual communication with a child between those same dates and causing a child to watch a sexual act by a person in a position of trust from October 20 2018 to January 31 2019.
Jennie Laskar-Hall of the Crown Prosecution Service said: ‘Barber used her position as a teacher and as a trusted member of the community to abuse a teenage boy in her care.
‘The messages were crucial to our case as they showed Barber had initiated contact with the teenager and pursued him, even threatening him when the school investigation began.
‘Denying what she had done, Barber has forced the teenager and his family to go through a trial, and I want to commend him for providing the vital evidence we needed to secure today’s conviction.’
Following her arrest, Barber claimed the only reason she had googled the word ‘alibi’ and ‘lie where you have been’ as she had watched the movie Fatal Attraction.
She suggested online searches for ‘secluded areas’ were to find new locations to walk her dog.
She also claimed a file on her phone ‘for my eyes only’ featuring topless photographs was intended for her husband.
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