Married teaching assistant, 37, admits performing a string of sex acts on a boy, 15, during a four-day school trip  



A married teaching assistant and mother-of-two has been warned she faces jail after admitting performing a string of sex acts on a 15-year-old boy during a school trip.

Jill Meldrum-Jones, 37, wept in the dock today as she pleaded guilty to a string of sex offences involving the teenage pupil over a four-day period last summer.

The mother, who has two children aged 12 and seven, worked at the victim's secondary school in Warwickshire, which cannot be named for legal reasons.

Today, Meldrum-Jones, of Kineton, Warwickshire, admitted five charges of sexual activity with a child between July 11 and July 14 last year at Warwick Crown Court.

One of the charges relates to the teacher performing oral sex on the boy while the court heard another two relate to her masturbating him.

She also pleaded guilty to two charges of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity on July 12 and July 13 last year. The court heard these charges involved her allowing the boy to perform sex acts on her.

Meldrum-Jones, who had dyed her blonde hair to brunette and wore a white blouse in the dock, was told she would be sentenced on November 28.

Adjourning the case for a pre-sentence report, Judge Sylvia de Bertodana warned her a jail term was 'likely'.

She added: 'You have pleaded guilty to the majority of these matters, you will have to be dealt with by way of sentence.

'Clearly there needs to be a pre-sentence report for your benefit. 'I'm going to make a condition of your bail that you co-operate with probation in the preparation of that report.

'You need to come back here for sentence on November 28. If you don't attend you are committing an offence.

'Please don't take any indication that it won't be a custodial sentence, I'm afraid that it is a likely outcome so prepare yourself for that. 'Before you go you're going to have to sign the sex offenders' register.'

Meldrum-Jones sobbed in the dock as her barrister told the court she was only allowed supervised contact with her own two children.

But Judge de Bertodano amended her bail conditions to allow her to see her children unsupervised. She added: 'It's hard to see she is any risk to her own children from what I have read about this case. 'I really can't see why she can't take her own children out for a walk on her own.'

The court heard Meldrum-Jones, who is believed to have been suspended from work earlier this year, still lived with her husband and two children. Asked by the judge if she was staying at the family home, Daniel Oscroft, defending, said: 'She is but the husband is always there.'

Meldrum-Jones also denied one charge of sexual assault against a different teenager, also aged 15, between February 1 and February 28 this year.

Prosecutor Stefan Kolodynski asked the court for two weeks to 'canvass the complainant's family' before deciding whether to ask for it to be left on file.

Meldrum-Jones was released on bail with a condition not to approach colleagues at the school or the teenage victim. She is also not allowed unsupervised access with children under the age of 16, except her own, unless approved by social workers.

The teaching assistant refused to comment as she left court and got into a waiting car outside the main entrance.

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