Jeremy Forrest: Background to the case

The gesture was said to have been because the girl was a nervous flyer but gossip began circulating at their school, Bishop Bell in Eastbourne.

Forrest was spoken to by a senior colleague after the trip and advised to keep his distance.

But Forrest and the teenager started tweeting each other, and private messages became ever more flirtatious.

Further questions by the school about possible inappropriate contact were met with firm denials from Forrest and the girl.

Forrest and the pupil first kissed in a classroom when she was 14. As the relationship turned sexual two months later, after she turned 15, the girl said Forrest knew he faced prison.

The girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said that as a couple they “made each other happy” and “nothing else mattered”. The relationship continued into the summer holidays. He took her for sex in the marital home in Ringmer, in his car and in hotels.

But soon a tip-off was made to police officers about their inappropriate relationship and the fact intimate pictures were sent between them.

At a joint meeting between police, education officials and the school on September 18, it was decided that the girl should be asked about the allegations. The following day, a police officer and a social worker visited her home while the girl was still at school. Her mother called her to return home. Sensing that the visit was to do with her relationship with Forrest, the girl went to see him in class.

That night, as police took away her mobile phone for analysis, the girl packed her bag.

The next day, 20 September, Forrest did not go to school. Over the phone, Forrest told the girl he had booked a ferry to France and to meet him near her house after school.

She told her mother she was going to stay overnight at a friend’s but she actually went to meet Forrest. Hand in hand and arm in arm, the pair were then caught on CCTV cameras boarding the 9.20pm Dover to Calais Spirit of France ferry.