Teacher found naked with pupil moans she 'doesn't get invited to kids parties anymore'

Sprung Dawson – who was caught half-naked with her 17-year-old student in 2012 - rang into a BBC Radio Scotland phone-in to complain about the ongoing "stigma" she faces

A teacher who was once caught naked in a layby with a 17-year-old schoolboy has moaned that she "doesn't get invited to kids' parties anymore".

Former English teacher Eppie Sprung Dawson - then married and using the name Sprung Dawson - offered the pupil help with his lessons at the Catholic St Joseph’s College in Dumfries, Scotland. But following a school dance in 2012, she was found half-naked with him in a lay-by by police.

Sprung lost her job and ended her two-year marriage to her husband. She admitted breach of trust in court in 2013 and was handed a six-month community payback order which did not require her to carry out any work but involved a compulsory course of psycho-sexual counselling. She was placed on the sex offenders’ register for six months.

And on Thursday, Dawson rang into a BBC Radio Scotland phone-in to complain about the ongoing "stigma" she faces. She told the programme: "I have a conviction for a sexual offence. I was a teacher and I had an affair with a 17-year-old pupil.

"So I do have experience of, kind of, living with the challenges that a person can face as a result of having a criminal record. I never experienced a custodial sentence, but I certainly did experience stigma. I mean, I had an exceptionally large amount of press coverage and media coverage for many, many years following my conviction.

"And I think I would say that was the most difficult thing I experienced. But I mean, of course, as with people with a conviction for a sexual offence particularly, face the highest degree of stigma. And so things like employment, even things like not being invited to my daughter’s friends’ birthday parties."

Back at the time in 2012, a pupil had called police after spotting the teacher leaving the end-of-term function with her young passenger. The fling cost Sprung her job of four years and ended her two-year marriage to her lecturer husband Ranald – son of former Solicitor General Lord Dawson.

She then moved her young lover into the marital home – to the fury of his family, who claimed she bombarded their son with gifts, including football tops and Xbox games. However, she was blindsided when the teen said they were not in a relationship and he later moved out.

Last year Sprung was handed £7,530 through a grant from the National Lottery Community Fund to set up a website for her project, Next Chapter Scotland. The charity "‘helps anyone who has been involved with the criminal justice system to navigate the stigma and discrimination that they can face throughout their lives". She hopes to allow people in Scotland with criminal records to "share their experiences", and help them to "navigate discrimination".