Runaway British teen heads home, teacher in French prison

BORDEAUX, FRANCE: A 15-year-old British schoolgirl who ran away to France with a married teacher twice her age returned home yesterday, while he was in prison awaiting extradition.
Jeremy Forrest, a 30-year-old maths teacher, and his pupil Megan Stammers were found in the southwestern city of Bordeaux on Friday, 10 days after they took the ferry from Dover.
Forrest was being held in Gradignan prison in southwest France pending a court hearing on Tuesday, and has said he will not oppose being handed over to British authorities, according to his lawyer Daniel Lalanne.
Forrest, seen by a witness Friday evening in the corridor of a Bordeaux court without handcuffs and “a long face”, surrounded by police, was “very disappointed by the sudden brake put on his romance,” Lalanne said.
Under French law, a 15-year-old is not considered a minor in sexual terms, unlike in Britain, where the age of consent is 16.
Lalanne, who saw Forrest early yesterday along with British lawyer Henrietta Ronson, added that Forrest was not depressed. He had been well treated by French authorities and in prison, he said.
He described Forrest as “charming”, seeming younger than his age and “very self-effacing.”
Police in Sussex, southern England, said Stammers’ parents had been in contact with their daughter by telephone but had remained in Britain as they await her return.
“Megan is likely to return today to be reunited with her family and to speak with police,” a spokesman said. British media had reported that Stammers’ mother Danielle Wilson would be flying to Bordeaux to bring her home, but a French source close to the case said Stammers had been travelling on her mother’s passport.
Forrest’s British lawyer Phil Smith said in a statement: “He has agreed to return to the UK as soon as possible without the need for protracted extradition proceedings.”
French authorities have only said that the teenager would be handed over to her family “as soon as possible”, without explaining how or when that would take place.
The pair were discovered strolling down Bordeaux’s main shopping street after a member of the public recognized Forrest from media coverage of the runaways.