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It took the jury three hours of deliberation to acquit Rebecca Whitehurst of two counts of sexual activity with a child and one of sexual communications. The 46-year-old began communicating with the pupil when she noticed him “visibly upset” during a lesson at a Greater Manchester school in April 2019, the jury had heard.

The married mother-of-two invited the student to one of her “mindfullness sessions” to help with his mental health, the court was told.

Whitehurst, from Lymm, Cheshire, was accused of carrying out a sex act on the teenager in the back of her car when they were said to have met in Platt Fields park in Fallowfield, Manchester, and on another occasion touching his penis.

She was also alleged to have communicated with him over WhatsApp for her own sexual gratification, reports Manchester Evening News.

Following a six-day trial at Minshull Street Crown Court, Whitehurst was acquitted of two counts of sexual activity with a child and one charge of sexual communications.

The jury took just three hours of deliberations to reach their unanimous verdicts on Tuesday afternoon.

Mrs Whitehurst sobbed in the dock and mouthed “thank you” to the jurors after the jury foreman had delivered the verdicts.

She wept as she left the dock, followed moments later by her husband who had watched the trial from the public gallery.

The prosecution had alleged Mrs Whitehurst had become emotionally and sexually involved with a “troubled young boy” who was a pupil at her school.

Her defence argued that although she may have handled things better the boy was “far from” being a victim and that her accuser had subjected her to “abuse, threats and manipulation”.

The defence said there was never any form of sexual activity and that the messages she was alleged to have sent and received over WhatsApp had been faked by the boy, a part of a “fantasy” he had created.

Mrs Whitehurst had emailed the boy through the school system and he was invited along to one of her “mindfulness sessions” to help with his mental health.

The boy went on to send her a ghost emoji during an email thread, which she said showed that he wanted to speak on the instant-messaging app, Snapchat.

“He told me he didn’t want to tell me on email as he didn’t trust it.

“I sent him an email with my Snapchat username for him to find me so that he could tell me what the secret was.

“The secret was that he was in love with me,” Mrs Whitehurst wept.

She told jurors that she felt like a “complete idiot” and said “I’m very very gullible”, and said she told him she would report it.

Mrs Whitehurst said she was “scared” and that she had “stupidly broken the cardinal rule” by sharing with the boy her non-school contact details.

She told the court that the boy said he “thought of killing himself” and she felt that if he didn’t get enough attention from her then it would end the contact.

Mrs Whitehurst said she tried to end the conversation but he could “sense she was redirecting” and would “reel her back in”.

Speaking of a number of incidents where the boy allegedly went to her classroom, she said: “He came to my room and he stuck his tongue down my throat”.

The teacher said she put her hands on his shoulders to stop him but the jurors heard the teenager thought this gesture was her “welcoming” him rather than pushing him away.

She told the court he touched her in intimate areas, adding he then “slapped me round the face and spat at me.”

She said he did this “at least ten times”.

Mrs Whitehurst said she told him to stop and said “what are you doing?” and would push him away. “I felt I had done something wrong,” she added.

When asked by her QC Mark Ford if she reported this, she admitted she had not as she “thought I would be held responsible as I’m the adult and he’s the child”.

“I was embarrassed, and ashamed that I mismanaged the situation,” she told the court.

She said the boy went on to give her gifts including a necklace, which she tried to give back to him.

“I didn’t want anything from him. I wanted him to leave me alone,” she said.

“I wore the necklace on a couple of occasions as I was worried he would kick off at me – I tried to reduce the opportunities to make him angry.”

Mrs Whitehurst said the boy went on to send her naked images of himself, which she said she deleted immediately and said she told him to stop.

She admitted that she sent him a picture of herself in her running kit as she was trying to help him “get out and get some fresh air”.

She said she was worried about him when he spoke about suicidal thoughts as she “didn’t want that to happen” and was “very fearful”. She “felt responsible for him”.

She admitted that she lied to the boy by saying she was going to be moving to America and “feigned” to him that she was going into hospital for two weeks due to stress, and would not have access to her phone.

“I thought that would make things stop,” she said.

The boy told police in a video interview, which was played during the trial, that Mrs Whitehurst “knew what she was doing” and that what she did was “entirely wrong”.

On another occasion he said she had just “made a mistake”. He admitted having a “crush” on the teacher.

The teenager told the officers: “I don’t know what love is but I guess I just wanted to be with her.

“I was kind of pestering her a lot which is kind of wrong but I didn’t realise it at the time.”

When the interviewing officer, asking about the alleged sexual contact in the back of her car, put it to him that Mrs Whitehurst was “in a position of trust”, the boy said: “Yeah, but when you are in love you don’t care about anything do you?”

When he was cross-examined in court via videolink, the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said he “loved her” and was “obsessed with her” and that he would contact her frequently.

The jurors were also told the boy had viewed ‘MILF’ pornography, an acronym which stands for “mothers I’d like to f***”.

Under cross-examination, the boy said he believed the term referred to someone with children rather older women.

The jurors were told no sexual images were found by the police. The youth said he deleted some messages “to protect her”.

During the trial, the defendant’s barrister Mr Ford, asked his client if she did anything to dissuade the boy from pursuing her.

“Yes, I told him on so many levels that it was inappropriate,” she said.

“I told him nothing like that is ever going to happen, it was a complete misunderstanding and it was never going to happen.

“He was angry and told me it was a mistake to give him my Snapchat username, that he could do what he wanted and the school would believe him.”

Mrs Whitehurst and her husband declined to comment as they left court.

Her accuser is entitled to anonymity in press reports of his case as someone who has made an allegation that they are a victim of a sex crime.

This entitlement remains even if the alleged perpetrator is acquitted at court.

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