'High flying' religious studies teacher, 36, who met up for romps with a 15-year-old pupil in a secluded woodland is jailed for 14 months

A teacher who had a six-month sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy has been jailed for 14 months. 

Jacqueline Millar, 36, met the pupil for sex in her car at a secluded wooded area in East Lothian and at her home. 

Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told the boy claimed he and Millar – who previously taught religious studies – had sex in the school after she had covered up the windows of a classroom. 

The illicit relationship was discovered only when Millar had to call 999 following an altercation between her and the boy at her home in Livingston, West Lothian, in March last year. 

The boy was taken into police custody after the incident. During an interview he told an officer he and the teacher had been ‘in a sexual relationship’ for several months. 

Jacqueline Millar, 36, met the pupil for sex in her car at a secluded wooded area in East Lothian and at her home

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The 36-year-old, who was described at Edinburgh Sheriff Court as ‘a high flyer’, admitted repeatedly kissing and cuddling the boy and uttering sexual remarks towards him

Millar returned to the dock for sentencing yesterday after previously pleading guilty to engaging in sexual activity with someone under 18 while a teacher between August 1, 2021, and February 8 last year. 

Sheriff Derek O’Carroll said there had been ‘a considerable degree of planning’ by Millar. The sheriff added: ‘I very much regret to say in my view regarding the gravity of the offence and your culpability, despite all that has been said in mitigation, there is in my view no alternative to a custodial sentence.’ 

Millar was also placed on the sex offenders’ register for ten years and will be included on the list of people banned from working with children and vulnerable adults. 

Advocate Sarah Livingstone, defending, said that Millar knew she had committed ‘a very serious offence’ but was ‘not a sexual predator’. 

Ms Livingstone said: ‘She is not someone who set out to sexually abuse the complainer. She accepts what she did was wrong and accepts full responsibility for it.’ 

The court was told previously that Millar started at the Lothians school – which cannot be identified for legal reasons – as a teacher in philosophical, religious and moral studies in July 2017. 

She was later promoted to a separate department and was described as a ‘high-flyer’.