In her own words, teen who ran away with teacher Jeremy Forrest aged just 15 reveals how she fell for him in class – and the moment they were finally caught in French hideaway
Teen reveals details of when she was a 15-year-old girl in a relationship with her then 30-year-old maths teacher
IT was the love affair that horrified a nation – a sordid “romance” between a 15-year-old girl and her 30-year-old maths teacher.
When the relationship between Gemma Grant* and Jeremy Forrest was discovered in September 2012, the pair fled from their homes in Eastbourne, East Sussex, to France – sparking an international manhunt.
Police caught up with the pair eight days after they went on the run.
Married Forrest was sentenced to five and a half years in jail, and released after three.
Here, for the first time since his release, Gemma, now 19, tells her extraordinary story.
THE French police officer laughed as he threw a newspaper on to the hotel bed.
I couldn’t understand the French headlines but the photo on the front page was my school picture.
“Do people actually know about this?” I stammered. “Just wait until you get back to England,” he smirked.
Eight days before, I’d been laughing in the front seat of my boyfriend’s car. I was deeply in love with my maths teacher, Jeremy Forrest.
At 30 years old, he was twice my age. But it didn’t feel like that.
It was like we mentally met in the middle — and, over time, he’d become the only person I could trust.
I didn’t think I’d end up here, trapped in a hotel suite with strangers laughing at me. But I wasn’t thinking rationally. All I knew was I wanted to be with Jeremy, and fleeing the country became our only option.
We first got close on a school trip to LA in February 2012 when I was 14 and in Year Ten. I’d hang back to chat to him, as we appeared to have so much in common — we liked the same bands and would compare our favourite Nirvana lyrics.
I thought he was so cool. On the flight home, I sat between him and a female teacher and clung to their hands to help my fear of flying. I didn’t want to let go of Jeremy’s when we landed.
After that, he was locked into my brain. I followed him on Twitter and waited. He followed me back soon after, and a few weeks later my phone pinged with a direct message.
“Have I upset you?” he asked.
I’d been acting up in his class. Excitement spiralled in me as I replied: “Don’t worry — it’s not you. How are you?”
From then on, we messaged regularly. In class, I always called him “Sir” but he looked at me differently, and I knew that later that evening my phone would light up with messages from him.
He became my life’s focal point.
Just weeks before school broke up, four months after our LA trip, he messaged me asking if I wanted to go for a drive. Nothing happened but even then I knew something would.
And soon enough, it did — a few days after my 15th birthday in June. As we walked along the seafront, we finally kissed.
After that we met more regularly — I’d tell my mum I was at my friend Louise’s* — we even kissed in empty classrooms at school.
Then summer term ended. I started to spend almost every day of the holidays at Jeremy’s house, which he shared with his wife of a year, who often worked away.
He would show me messages from her where they were arguing, and insisted that they were separated despite still living together. I chose to believe him.
It was in his spare room that we had sex for the first time, a little over a month after that first kiss. He didn’t know I was a virgin.
Later, when I’d told him the truth, it would sometimes put him off having sex with me. He’d sit at the end of his bed with his face in his palms feeling guilty for what we were doing.
Whenever I spent the night at his place, or in a hotel, I’d tell my mum I was with Louise. We tried to separate school and real life.
When I wasn’t with him, Jeremy was all I thought about, and I lived in constant fear we’d be discovered. As the summer was whittled away in a blur of car rides, kisses and out-of-town cinema trips, we began to discuss our fantasy future.
We would daydream about where we would start a new life together. We never thought we’d need to flee England, though.
I hoped that, once I turned 18, we could reveal the truth. The reality was very different.
As soon as I stepped through the school gates to begin Year 11, the atmosphere there had changed.
Rumours had begun to circulate after a girl I’d been on a summer work placement with saw me getting into Jeremy’s car. I was so in love I didn’t want to stop the whispers.
Teachers suspected something, too. A week into term, one even dragged Jeremy out of the canteen when he saw me enter — the general feeling seemed to be that I was putting a decent man’s career at risk.
Every day, kids would shout “slut” as I walked down the halls.
On September 19, four months after our affair began, the lies started to unravel at a million miles an hour. I’d just finished a science lesson when my phone rang. It was my brother.
“The police are here, saying you’ve been texting a teacher. You better get home,” he told me.
I stood paralysed with fear, as my thumb cancelled incoming calls from my mum. I called Jeremy. When he asked what I wanted to do, I replied: “Run away.” I wanted us to be free.
By the time I got home, I’d deleted every trace of Jeremy from my phone. I’d denied that anything was going on.
Mum let me stay at Louise’s the next night. Before I left, I looked Mum in the eyes and said, “I love you,” before sneaking my passport out of the kitchen drawer.
The next day, at 4.30pm, Jeremy collected me and we drove to the ferry port. On the way to Calais, he threw his iPhone into the sea.
In Bordeaux, Jeremy booked us into a rundown hotel and paid in cash. For eight mornings, we headed to a little cafe and spoke hopefully, persuading ourselves that people would recognise that Jeremy was a good guy and I was sensible enough to make my own decisions.
We were oblivious to the media frenzy back home, to the headlines screeching “Paedophile teacher abducts innocent schoolgirl”.
We knew it was illegal for us to be together but we genuinely believed that if we stuck it out, eventually we could return home.
In our ensuite bathroom, I tried to dye my hair blonde. Jeremy coloured his black and took to wearing a cap.
But just over a week after our arrival in France, on September 28, as we walked hand in hand, a man in regular clothes jumped out and grabbed Jeremy. I screamed, thinking he was being mugged. Then my arms were pushed behind me. I couldn’t breathe and the only word I understood was “police”.
Jeremy was handcuffed and pushed on to a bench. He kept mouthing, “It’s fine,” as I was bundled into a van. That was the last I saw of him until he stood in front of me in court.
The police asked, “Did you have sex?” and, “Did you willingly go over to France?” I replied “yes” to both.
I wanted the lies to be over. Then, I had to phone my mum. I thought she’d be angry but instead she cried.
I was escorted to a different hotel for the night. An officer checked the windows, and I had to leave the bathroom door ajar to show I wasn’t going to kill myself.
But I didn’t want to run away or take my own life. All I wanted to comfort me through this mess was Jeremy. I wrapped myself in his cardigan on the plane journey home. The police saw it as a black and white case of a man taking advantage of some silly girl. But, to me, Jeremy was my boyfriend.
Back home, “groomer” and “paedophile” were the words I kept hearing. I was sent to a special institution to complete my GCSEs.
Nine months later, my exams fell in the same week as Jeremy’s trial.
Until the very last moment I thought things might be OK but when he was found guilty of child abduction and sex with a minor, I broke down in the court beside his family.
He was sentenced to five and a half years but served three and was released last August.
After he was imprisoned, I became depressed. It was impossible to make contact and I moved out of Mum’s as our relationship became so fractured.
I questioned whether I was the victim people had made me out to be. I’m still asking myself that now.
All I know is at the time it didn’t feel that way — it was me who followed Jeremy on Twitter and I welcomed the advances he made in response.
Since Jeremy’s release, we have only spoken once, about a year ago, after I messaged a Facebook account that came up as a suggested friend.
He sounded the same and, importantly, happy. He had a new girlfriend.
Things have got better for me, too. I’m close with my family again and eventually met another boy (my own age), named Sam*, who I fell head over heels for. We’re no longer together but Sam showed me that my past doesn’t have to define my future.
Do I regret my relationship with Jeremy? I can’t say I do but I now recognise it for what it was: A dangerous infatuation. One that cost both of us dearly.
* Names have been changed. Gemma was talking to JENNIFER SAVIN. Read Gemma’s full story in the July issue of Cosmopolitan, on sale now. If you have been affected by the issues in this story, contact Childline (which supports anyone up to age 19) on 0800 1111 or visit .