14 DAY TRIAL // 24-year-old swimming teacher Craig Evans, of Birmingham, England, has been jailed for 18 months after pressing the wrong button on his Blackberry.
The young teacher intended to send a saucy text message to his girlfriend, but the SMS ended up delivered to all his contacts. Two of those contacts were 13- and 14-year-old girls that were taking his class at the local leisure center.
Evans was tried and convicted by the Birmingham Crown Court, where he was sentenced to 18 months of jail time, in July.
According to the Daily Mail, his lawyers brought the case in front of the London Court of Appeal, this week. The litigator argued that the incident was simply a result of a “misguided use of his BlackBerry.”
Evans had meant to send a romantic text to his girlfriend, in which he expressed his desire to lie “skin on skin,” and was asking the recipient whether they preferred their encounter, scheduled for later that evening, to go on “fast or slow.”
The swimming teacher's trial attorney showed the court that the text had gone out via BlackBerry Messenger to all the contacts in Evans' address book, not targeting the teenagers in particular. Member of the man's family had received the same text, the trial proved.
Lord Justice Elias tried over the case and ruled the incident an “evidently misguided” occurence, adding that it was “difficult to conclude that he was targeting anyone.”
Evans's sentence was reduced to nine months and suspended, freeing the 24-year-old from jail, but leaving him with a permanent stain of his record and reputation.
“The facts of this case are rather unusual. Messages... were sent to every single contact in his phone, including members of his own family. […] It is difficult to conclude that he was targeting anyone. There were a number of mitigating factors in this case,” judge Elias explained.
British lawmakers are proving more and more alert when it comes to situations in which teachers display unusual interest in their teenage students, following the much debated and publicized relationship between 15-year-old Megan Stammers and her 30-year-old teacher. The couple had started an unlikely affair that led to them fleeing to France together, and getting caught yesterday, 8 days after their departure.