Serious questions over missing Megan’s school

The photo of the couple was taken on board a ferry from Dover to Calais at 9.30pm last Thursday, 21 September.

The parents of 15-year-old Megan Stammers have made an emotional appeal for her to get in contact with them, after she caught a ferry to the continent last week with 30-year-old Jeremy Forrest – a teacher at Bishop Bell C of E School.

It has now emerged that concerns were expressed to another teacher about their relationship.

An East Sussex County Council spokesman said: “Because the investigations are ongoing we are not going to comment in detail. However the school and the county council had been addressing and investigating concerns that had been raised, in line with procedure, when this happened.

“That investigation will continue and we will decide what action to take.”

School grooming incident

It has also emerged that in 2009, a teacher at Bishop Bell C of E School was jailed for seven years after grooming two pupils on social networking site Bebo.

Robert Healy, then aged 27, had sex three or four times with one teenage victim after taking her back to his father’s house over a period of a fortnight.

He then started a second relationship with a slightly older girl from the same school, where he was a supply teacher.

Jailing him at Lewes Crown Court, Judge Charles Kemp said his “predatory” behaviour was a “grave breach of trust”.

In a seperate incident it emerged that a retired Church of England priest facing child sex charges is a former chairman of the governors.

Canon Gordon Rideout, 73, is accused of committing 38 offences over an 11-year period between 1962 and 1973.

He was charged in June following an inquiry by Sussex Police into allegations of child sex abuse in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Rideout, from Polegate, near Eastbourne, has been bailed to appear at a plea and case management hearing at Lewes Crown Court next month.

The school has previously said that he had links to the school but was not a member of staff and that the allegations were historical and unrelated to the school.

Message to friend

Police say Megan sent a message to a friend saying she had arrived in France.

It marked the last contact since 15-year-old Megan caught a ferry to the continent last week, sparking a cross-channel search.

The message was sent to one of her good friends saying she was in France but did not come from her own phone, a senior police officer revealed last night.

Last Thursday Megan asked her mother whether she could stay overnight at a friend’s house. Her mother said she agreed.

But the following morning, her mother received a text message from her school, Bishop Bell C of E in Eastbourne, East Sussex where Forrest teaches, saying she had failed to attend class.