A DRAMA teacher who took advantage of a vulnerable pupil by having a lesbian affair with her was yesterday jailed for three years.

Caroline French, from Darlington, saved the girl from bullies but committed a “gross breach of trust” by encouraging an intimate relationship.

Sentencing her, Judge Stuart Baker said French was well respected by colleagues and pupils at her former school in Blackpool, where she was head of drama.

The 38-year-old denied indecently assaulting the teenager and previously denied being gay.

A jury convicted her of three counts of sexual assault and one of indecency with a child between January and April 2004, when her victim was aged 15.

When that relationship ended, French became intimate with another girl who she taught at a different school in the resort.

She moved into French’s former home in Lytham St Annes in September 2004 when she was 16 and the pair began an alleged three-year sexual relationship.

French, of Ashtree Close, Darlington, denied the pair had been lovers, saying the girl was her lodger.

Judge Baker told French yesterday: “You went on to take advantage of the closeness of the relationship and you encouraged her into an intimate relationship. It involved a gross breach of trust.

“You have shown yourself to be not only a good teacher and well-respected on one hand, but on the other hand a manipulative, selfish and, when it suits you, a vindictive woman.”

French was also disqualified from working with children.

The judge said French allowed the girl to stay at her former home in Lytham St Annes and smoke and drink alcohol, which may have been deliberate grooming.

Andrew Nuttall, in mitigation, said: “She has, of course, lost her good name; her career; her livelihood.”

He said it was not a passive relationship, adding that the victim, now in her 20s, had never made a complaint, had not made a victim impact statement and had not wanted to appear in court.