Buckinghamshire Teacher Kandice Barber Convicted Of Having Sex With Minor

A married UK teacher convicted of having sex with her 15-year-old student has been sentenced to more than six years in prison.

Kandice Barber,35, a mother of three was busted in March 2020, four months after the principal at Princes Risborough School saw an explicit photo of her being shared at the secondary school about 40 miles northwest of London.

According to the prosecutor Richard Milne, Kandice Barber had asked for the boy’s phone and had added herself to his Snapchat. The teenager had found it “a bit weird”. When he started feeling worried and got scared as their relationship was no more a secret, that is when Barber told him to “deny everything” and “delete all the messages”, the prosecutor said.

“There is no doubt in my mind that you acted in gross breach of trust,” a judge told Barber. “You took advantage of a child in your care and groomed him for your own sexual gratification.”

Earlier, Kandice Barber was convicted of sending nude pictures to the boy on Snapchat but she was later acquitted. Barber was also accused of threatening the teenage boy. She had told him that she will “bring him down with her” if their sexual relationship comes to light and the fact that Barber was pregnant with his child. She later had a miscarriage but had allegedly continued threatening the boy.

The National Society of Prevention to Cruelty To Children, a charity organisation working for child protection in the UK, released its statement on the case. The spokesperson said, “Barber, as a teacher, would have been well aware of the vulnerability of young people and it was her duty to safeguard those in her care”. He added that Barber instead “exploited her position of trust to groom and abuse this teenage boy for her own sexual gratification”.