andy-hughes
If one reads through your latest post, one can see reason within it, except of course your reference to taking the "CHILD" abroad, who later you more fittingly described as a teenager.
So yes there is plenty of intelligent reasoning to your post, but only in the cold light of day, the benefit of foresight, and with you not personally involved in the affair, but how can we possibly take into account human weaknesses?
You say that /// This is done simply by establishing some basic ground rules, and arranging a professional distance between both parties - which the majority of teachers in secondary schools manage to achieve on a daily
basis. ///
How can anyone possibly know this, all we know that it has happened at least once and we know that because in this instance the teacher was caught, but there must be many such cases whereas the girl (who these days can be very mature) sets her stall out to attract the teacher of her dreams, it only takes for a teacher to succumb to her and we finish in a situation such as this, and then as in any human relationship the age gap doesn't seem all that important.
So ignoring the fact that he committed a crime against a juvenile, broke his teacher/pupil relationship, and of course abducted the girl abroad, just consider it was a two way thing, and that the teacher is not the only one solely responsible, and yes he could have rejected her advances but who knows what pressure she put on him?
Just remember Andy in one's lifetime we all come up to situations where we have to make a decision, sometimes we get it right but other times we can get it wrong, in this case the teacher got it wrong, but then he is only human with human weaknesses.