Reading piano teacher spared jail over sexual assault on boy

Fiona Carrier, now 61 but then in her mid-30s, had admitted touching the boy as they sat on a sofa in her home.

She had earlier kissed the child, who she taught piano at the Reading Blue Coat School.

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Last month, jurors cleared the piano teacher of five counts of indecently assaulting the teen boy in the late 90s.

Prosecutors had claimed that Carrier repeatedly had sex with the boy at her home in Goring.

Together with a number of his contemporaries, he had taken to visiting the property in order to play music.

The defendant denied the allegations, but pleaded guilty at Oxford Magistrates’ Court to a separate charge of indecent assault – reflecting her admission that she and the boy, who was below the age of consent, had touched each other’s private parts on a sofa at her home.

The victim denied that the incident, as admitted by the defendant, had happened.

On Thursday (July 6), defence counsel Jack Talbot described the incident as an ‘aberration’ and a ‘one-off’ for which Carrier had ‘racked’ herself with guilt in the intervening years.

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Imposing 14 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years, Judge Maria Lamb said: “He first encountered you when he was about 14 years of age. You were his teacher. You held a position of responsibility and trust towards him and in that you failed lamentably.”

She added: “You allowed the boundaries that should have existed between a teacher and her pupils to be blurred. You were not there to be a personal friend of or a peer to these young people.

“They were not there to be your confidants. You permitted a small coterie of those pupils to come to your house at weekends or outside school hours to play music.

“And I don’t doubt that they enjoyed your company, those that you allowed – the victim amongst them – to visit your home where music was played, where they were allowed to drink alcohol in what your victim described as a permissive atmosphere.”

She said she took the view that Carrier, whose marriage had broken down at the time of the offending, had been ‘flattered’ by the attention she received from the victim.

Prosecuting, James Keeley asked the judge to consider that Carrier’s culpability – or blameworthiness – was high.

There had been a breach of trust, grooming, there was a significant difference in age between them and it had taken place at the defendant’s house, the prosecutor said.

The victim’s impact statement was not read out in open court, as Mr Keeley said he had asked that it was not read out.

But he added it was clear the offence had had a ‘deep impact’ on him.

Mr Talbot, mitigating, asked the judge to take into account the large number of character references provided in support of his client.

They included a statement from her husband, who described Carrier as ‘no threat to anybody’ and someone who had ‘nothing but love in her heart’.

During the trial, she was described as an inspirational teacher with an exemplary record.

Mr Talbot said: “It’s a rather unusual case in that, obviously, the conduct which is admitted is something the complainant said never took place.

"It is a delicate exercise when considering, for instance, the victim personal statement.”

It was not accepted that the teacher had ‘groomed’ her victim, he said.

The defendant was of previous good character, had ‘used her life as a force for good’ and, Mr Talbot said, had regretted ‘this monumental error ever since it happened’.

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Explaining her decision to suspend the sentence, Judge Lamb said after ‘very careful’ consideration she had decided it was not a case where appropriate punishment could only be achieved by immediate imprisonment.

“A sentence is not intended [...] to quantify in terms of the extent of that harm what recompense is thus due to the victim. It never could,” she said.

“No victim would ever say any sentence measured in a matter of what they would regard as a few years would ever reflect the damage done to them. It would be offensive so to do.”

The judge pressed home the point that the sentencing guidelines were ‘gender neutral’ and any suggestion to the contrary was ‘outdated and misconceived’.

Carrier, of Bucklebury, Berkshire, will be on the sex offender register for 10 years.

She must complete up to 35 rehabilitation activity requirement days with the probation service and abide by a restraining order preventing her from contacting the victim.