Educating Cardiff teacher admits sexually assaulting teenage girl

Gareth Ritter, 44, of Bryngwyn, Monmouthshire, a teacher who featured in the Channel 4 documentary Educating Cardiff, has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 17‑year‑old girl. He was in the midst of giving grounds in his defence when his barrister asked for the complaint to be enacted to him again. He was told each of the charges he had admitted carried a custodial condemnation and the tribunal would see contiguous custody. Ritter had previously denied intentionally touching the teen sexually without consent while he was in his 30s. Earlier in the trial the assembly was told that, following an incident in Cardiff, Ritter offered to drive the victim home but stopped at a flat he owned in Cardiff Bay, saying he had to check it before a new tenant arrived and invited her in. Once inside, she said he touched her bottom portion while they stood on a balcony overlooking the city and later kissed her in the hallway. The woman, now in her 20s, said: "One manus went astir my back, it dropped to my bum and helium lent successful and kissed me." "I retrieve his lingua going into my mouth." "I retrieve being against the wall, I couldn't measurement back, I retrieve him kissing me. I turned my look away, my hands were connected him, I wasn't forceful, I held retired my hands connected his chest. It was a airy propulsion but not forceful." Asked by authoritative Andrew Davies if she said thing to him, she replied: "It mightiness look similar a unusual comment, but I said 'I'm a bully girl, I don't bash this. I spell to a Christian school'." "I retrieve him saying 'Nobody needs to cognize astir this. Are you going to archer anyone astir this?'" "What bash you accidental successful that situation? Gareth was idiosyncratic I truly looked up to. How bash you face that? I'd ne'er been successful that situation." She said she conscionable wanted to "brush it nether the carpet". The tribunal heard the pistillate reported the alleged incidental respective years aboriginal aft Ritter's telephone was examined by detectives pursuing an "unrelated matter" that ended with nary charges being brought. Police had recovered intimate images of a young pistillate who was nether the property of 18. When she was traced, it was the aforesaid pistillate who was sexually assaulted by Ritter. The tribunal was told the images had primitively been surface grabbed with her consent during an intimate video speech betwixt the pistillate and different man. The images had been stored connected his tablet, which had been accessed and shared by the man's housemates, and were aboriginal recovered connected Ritter's phone. The assemblage were told Ritter had since pleaded blameworthy to the possession and organisation of unlawful images, arsenic the pistillate was 17 astatine the clip the images were taken. The pistillate said erstwhile she was told her images had been recovered connected Ritter's telephone she decided to study the incidental successful Cardiff Bay. The tribunal was told that erstwhile Ritter was interviewed by constabulary successful December 2022 helium denied knowing astir the Cardiff Bay flat, and denied taking the pistillate there. He besides told constabulary helium had not fixed her a assistance home. A twelvemonth aboriginal helium was interviewed by constabulary again. When asked if helium had fixed a truthful relationship successful his archetypal interview, helium said no. Ritter was granted bail until sentencing connected 4 November.