Teacher jailed for sexually abusing boy, 15, after becoming ‘obsessed’ with him

A teacher has been jailed after ‘manipulating’ a teenage boy into sex and abusing her position of trust.

Private tutor Emily Drury, 26, from Mablethorpe, was handed a four-and-a-half-year sentence at Lincoln Crown Court after being arrested last June.

Drury admitted five counts of sexual activity with a child, pleading guilty to the charge of engaging in non-penetrative sexual activity with a teenage boy and four charges of engaging in penetrative sexual activity with a teenage boy.

However, police said she ‘delayed her guilty plea until the very last opportunity’, prolonging uncertainty and difficulty for the victim.

Judge James House KC said only a custodial sentence was appropriate due to the severity of her crimes.

She sexually abused the 15-year-old on numerous occasions between May and June 2025, having targeted him after seeing him drinking with friends and offering to tutor him in private ahead of his exams.

The court heard how she warned the boy, ‘You can’t tell anyone about this,’ with prosecutor Amber Hobson explaining that he agreed before confiding in two of his friends, sending them a picture of Drury.

After ‘rumours’ began, word reached the boy’s school, and the police were contacted.

The court also heard how, when interviewed, the boy permitted phone to look through his phone, on which they found a message from the ex-teacher, referring to a note and cash she left him.

‘I enjoy every piece of you. I don’t know how to stop, or what this is. Here’s £20 just in case…Your Em xoxo’, it read.

A victim impact statement from the boy was read out during sentencing, with Drury seen wiping tears from her eyes.

‘Since getting married, her and her husband didn’t really talk, they weren’t having sex and marriage wasn’t what she expected,’ the student said Drury told him.

‘She treated me kindly, told me she was obsessed with me.’

The boy recalled Drury saying ‘positive things’ to him, buying him clothes, and making him ‘feel better’ about himself.

‘I trusted her and confided in her about some very personal things.’

He continued: ‘I felt judged. I felt that people blamed me. I felt unable to simply be a child.’

Reluctant to report the abuse initially, he said he was ‘worried that people would not take [him] seriously’ because of his gender.

‘I believed there was a stigma attached to being a male victim of sexual abuse, and that fear made it even harder to cope.’

He concluded: ‘I realised I had been manipulated. I was put into a situation where I was experiencing emotions and situations no child should have to experience.’

Drury’s defence barrister, Jeremy Janes, said she had hoped to have a ‘lifelong career’, which, because of her behaviour, she has now lost.

He said his client pursued an ‘uncharacteristic, fantastical, and unreal relationship’ with the child.

Character references from her parents and brother were also submitted to the court, with her husband and other relatives in attendance.

Drury was told by the judge how the lasting impact of the abuse would continue in the boy’s mind while he was approaching his exams.

‘She was in a position of trust. She was the adult; he was the child,’ he said while passing sentencing.

‘This was not simply a single indiscretion – that would have been bad enough.’

Drury must serve a minimum of half of her four-year, six-month sentence before she can be considered for release.

In addition to jail time, she has been given a sexual harm prevention order and a restraining order lasting five years. She will be on the sex offenders’ register for life.

Detective Constable Julie Jode, from Lincolnshire Police, called her actions ‘despicable’.

‘As an adult in a position of authority, she was expected to provide guidance, support, and protection. Instead, she used that position to target and manipulate someone who should have been able to trust her implicitly.

‘The victim in this case was forced to navigate an incredibly difficult and challenging period of his life while also facing the uncertainty of a lengthy criminal justice process. The fact that the offender delayed accepting responsibility only added to that ordeal.’

Police have praised the boy’s ‘remarkable courage and resilience’ in bringing Drury to justice, insisting that ‘gender is not a factor in how reports of sexual abuse are investigated’.

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