Husband of teacher who 'slept with pupil' says couple were trying for a baby
The husband of a teaching assistant accused of having sex with a 15-year-old student has said the couple were trying for a baby around the time of the alleged offences.
Kandice Barber, 35, is accused of having sex with the teenager in a field and sending topless photos of herself to him on Snapchat between September and October 2018.
The student at Princes Risborough School, Buckinghamshire, who cannot be named, said the mother-of-three told him he had a bigger penis than her husband and that she was pregnant with his child.
Barber denies three counts of causing or inciting a child aged under 16 to engage in a sexual act and one count of sexual communication with a child, as well as one count of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activities while in a position of trust, and one count of causing a child to watch a sexual act by a person in a position of trust.
Aylesbury Crown Court heard the student was approached by Barber at a sports presentation in September 2018, and she took his phone and added herself to his Snapchat before having sex with him in a field the next month.
Speaking in court on Thursday, husband Daniel Barber said the couple were trying for a baby at the time the allegations are said to have taken place.
Asked if he knew why his wife was arrested in March 2019, he said: “She works in a school, I kind of guessed it, it wasn’t hard.”
When he was asked if he spoke to his wife about why she was arrested when he picked her up from the police station, he said: “There was so much that happened in the daytime, we were talking about it but it wasn’t making any sense what we were talking about.
“She said there were pictures and that there was communication between them, the boy and herself.”
Barber’s mother said her daughter told her she was arrested because “a young student had been harassing her and that was about it”.
The court heard how the headteacher asked the boy about rumours of an affair.
Jurors were told the boy initially denied it to the headteacher in January 2019, allegedly because Barber told him she could be pregnant with his child.
He told the headteacher what allegedly happened in March 2019, jurors were told, and said Barber had picked him up and had sex with him after school.
Nicholas Simms, who was head at the time, said the boy was shaking and took a while to explain the situation, the court heard.
The student denied he was “obsessed” with the teacher, and Barber’s defence lawyer Nadia Chbat also suggested he made a false account and invented a conversation he took screenshots of.
He said Barber told him she “was going to bring me down with her” if he talked about the affair.
Jurors heard that police took a statement from a social worker who said Barber told her she “let her guard down and sent a topless picture” to the boy, and police found Barber had googled “alibi” and “having an affair”.
She said these were in reference to a film, and when asked why she searched for “secluded area” on Google, Barber said she had a dog she wanted to take for a walk.
Barber said she had given the pupil her number so he could talk to her about an issue he had with another student, although Aylesbury Crown Court heard she was not supposed to contact students outside of school without permission from the head.
“It is something I am incredibly embarrassed about, I know it was the wrong thing to do but I had good intentions in doing it,” Barber said.
She continued: “There was always something he needed to speak to me about – I was checking his general welfare as well.”
Barber, of Wendover, told the court she would get Snapchat messages saying “call me, call me” and would try to respond, but the messaging became “persistent”.
She said she tried to tell the boy she was uncomfortable with the communication.
In November 2018 she went off school for two weeks after suffering an ectopic pregnancy.
She said she never told the student the baby could be his but the fact she had lost a baby was well known in the school.
Barber said topless photos of her that circulated around the school had been leaked because the “My Eyes Only” folder in her Snapchat had been hacked.
The court was told she sent a message to the student telling him to “delete everything – don’t want to get in any trouble”.
After she refused to have further contact with him, she told jurors he sent a message that said: “Watch what’s going to happen, you’re going to lose your job, you’re going to lose your family.” The student denied sending this.
The trial continues.
