Schoolboy admits to 'blackmailing' teacher to keep love affair secret

The boy says he began the relationship with married Janine Saville-King, 29, when he was 15.

The pair then met for regular sex sessions in her home, at hotels and in the boy's mother's house.

But in court, the teenager was described as a "manipulative young man" who had befriended a vulnerable woman and then lied about the affair.

Sarah Forshaw, defending, told him: "You asked for £5,000 or you would tell the school and newspapers, suggesting she had slept with you."

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denied considering an approach to the media. But he said: "I do remember saying that once about the money.

"I said I would tell the school about the relationship."

The admission came on the third day of a trial in which Saville-King denies having a 15-month relationship with the boy, who is now 18.

The court has heard that the assistant year leader, who helped the boy with his homework and later taught business studies at the school in Watford, Hertfordshire, was "infatuated" with him.

The relationship is said to have started in the summer of 2004 and continued while she was heavily pregnant with her 37-year-old husband Paul's baby.

The teenager claims that, when he tried to end the relationship, she turned up at a supermarket where he was working and said: "Tell me it's all over to my face and I'll leave you alone." The jury heard the pair performed sex acts on each other "hundreds of times" while the boy was still 15.

They first had full sex after he turned 16 because he "didn't want her to feel bad about her having sex with him whilst he was underage".

They allegedly continued having sex until three days before Saville-King, who was living in St Albans, Hertfordshire, at the time, gave birth in July 2005 and the trysts resumed a few weeks afterwards.

In St Albans Crown Court the defence admitted the pair had exchanged hundreds of messages by text, phone and by internet messaging service MSN.

In one four-day period in May 2005, Saville-King sent 125 text messages.

At the height of the exchanges the brunette sent him 63 messages in one day.

The couple also exchanged more than 200 'closely-typed' MSN pages - which discussed how they couldn't live without each other - in a three-month period in 2005.

Miss Forshaw said her client had suffered from an eating disorder, took leave due to stress after she was bullied by a female pupil and became lonely during maternity leave.

But while Saville-King had regularly communicated with the boy, she added, the sexual relationship was an invention.

Claiming the boy often failed to return the teacher's messages or phone calls, Miss Forshaw said: "Did you discover that you could control Mrs Saville-King's feelings towards you, either withholding calls or being extremely nice to her?

"No," the boy replied.

"You knew you could get her to say she missed you and loved you," Miss Forshaw continued.

"Your an extremely intelligent and manipulative young man, aren't you?"

The boy said: "You can't make somebody tell you they love you."

Earlier in the trial the court heard several emails sent by Saville-King, who now lives in Hook, Hampshire, with her husband.

One said: "I'll go anywhere with you and do anything for you."

The boy told his headteacher about the alleged relationship in November 2005, after he had left the school.

Saville-King was arrested three months later and told police the teenager had "used the concern and support I have offfered him and manipulated it into the false allegations".

She denied seven charges of sexual activity with a child and one charge of abuse of trust.

The case continues.