A MATHS teacher was today starting a 12-month jail sentence for having sex with a pupil.

Kin Ming Hung, 33, had a series of sex liaisons with the 15-year-old girl while her parents believed he was giving her private tuition to help improve her maths, Reading Crown Court heard.

Abigail Husbands, prosecuting, said that Hung and the girl had become friendly over emails after she left the school where he taught, at the end of Year Nine.

He would talk to her about wanting to kiss her when she was just 14.

Hung admitted three charges of indecent assault which covered the six occasions they had sex between October and December 2003, when the girl was aged 15.

Ms Husbands told the court: "She (the victim) said that she really liked the defendant and the relationship developed.

"She lost her virginity to the defendant when she was 15."

The judge heard that the defendant left the school in Cambridgeshire and moved to Oxford at the end of 2003.

Rachel Drake, defending, said that the girl was an "enthusiastic participant in this activity".

Judge Zoe Smith described his actions as a "gross breach of trust".

Hung, of Leander Way, South Oxford, was sentenced to 12 months in jail for each of the counts, all to run concurrently.

The judge ordered that he should not work with children again.

She also ruled that he should be placed on the sex offenders' register for ten years.