SEEING paedophile teacher Jeremy Forrest in the headlines again, I felt a sickening chill creep up my spine.
As he was pictured 15 years his junior, my stomach turned as I was reminded of Matt.
I was 32 and had just been discharged from hospital after an ongoing health battle when I first met the former secondary . He was also 32.
Looking back he immediately picked up on my vulnerabilities and made a beeline for me, striking up conversations whenever he could.
We met online volunteering for a and he said he loved my work and how open I was about my health struggles. “You're very brave,”; he cooed over email.
He did tell me early on that he had a ‘sordid past’ but I imagined that referred to a habit for or on former partners.
I never imagined the horrific extent of what he meant.
I later learnt he had spent 18 months in prison for
We were sitting drinking coffee when he told me about his crime and he spoke hushed and hurried, like it was little consequence: “It was images”, he said. I listened. It went quiet between us. “Thanks for not running off”, he said.
We'd met online at a charity for offenders and I saw him as vulnerable, as I was, rather than sickening.
“We all make mistakes,” I thought, easily convinced he had changed like the other married and well turned-out men who worked and volunteered at the charity which housed both ex-offenders and volunteers from the public.
It wasn't until I got suspicious – some years later – that I googled past articles to see the details of his crimes – the truth was starting to hit home now and I felt very unsettled.
After meeting his parents I discovered his real name that he'd changed by deed poll on release – And legally.
Matt had worked as a teacher when his crimes against teenage girls hit headlines – much like ex-teacher who is known for absconding to with a 15-year old pupil. He was 30 at the time.
Like Forrest, Matt abused his position of power as a teacher to cajole young women. They also both hid their crimes behind professional jobs, like many ‘Paedos-in-Power' do.
And just like Forrest, he was back to lies and cheating on release from jail – only this time their younger women are “consenting adults” as they're over 18.
For Matt, this meant 19-year-old students, whom he often sought out for their vulnerabilities.
Soon after we met online, Matt told me he was moving to my local area to study a doctorate in criminology which I admired – he'd served his time and hoped to understand prisons better which I thought was wonderfully inspiring.
The charity encouraged us not to go looking into offenders' crimes to help with rehabilitation. Besides, everyone deserves a second chance in life, right?
Within six months I had moved into the house he was renting as his girlfriend. He possessed deep intellect, was charming, witty and did all the cooking and cleaning.
“I'd make a wonderful house-husband!”; he would often joke.
We got on like a house on fire, I was easy-going and never nagged and he seemed to like that about me.
But he started to change once he'd got his doctorate and subsequently a job as a lecturer.
I started to worry about the time he spent away at academic conferences for up to three nights at a time.
Five years into our relationship and something felt deeply wrong so I went digging around his home office.
I found receipts that revealed he was staying in hotels with young students around the age of 19. Surely after his spell in prison he'd learnt his lessons about abuse of powers?
I raised concerns with both him and one of the students in question about this – both confessed they shared a bed in the hotel, but both claimed nothing happened and that they only shared a bed to save costs.
Receipts I later found revealed he was stopping in hotels with young students
Molly Nicholls
That's when the gaslighting started.
According to him, I was violent and irrational, raising my “unfounded”; concerns and getting angry about another night away from home with his students whom he enjoyed worryingly close relations with.
He was hiding in plan sight and even showed me a lecture he was delivering to students where the final slide said: “Now, let us all go to the pub!”;
He was over-friendly by some stretch.
But once I raised concerns he also told his colleagues that he was struggling to deal with my ‘paranoia’ and my accusations, even claiming they were causing him depression.
Meanwhile, my mental health was at an all time low and I signed up for counselling in the hope of receiving the support I wasn’t getting from Matt.
It was a dark time. Was I mad? Was Matt cheating?
After six months of feeling uneasy, Matt finally said he couldn't cope with my accusations and we amicably broke things off after six and a half years, selling the home we owned together.
It wasn't until years later that my worst fears were confirmed when his colleague DM'd me on Instagram over several voice-notes.
She wanted to meet up and talk about Matt.
This is when I discovered, four years after we split up, that Matt had been fired from his lecturing post for a “wealth of allegations over sexual misconduct all from young students spanning decades and many institutions”;.
At first I didn't want to believe it – it was better to believe that I had simply been paranoid.
I've come to realise that prison is little help to paedophiles like Matt.
He has a sexual preference for young and often vulnerable women – they've just got a little older, as he has.
I think it's an absolute travesty that child sex offenders are able to work as lecturers at universities.
But campaigners insist criminal record checks are illegal working alongside “consenting adults”;.
As a self-appointed ‘penal reform activist' Matt went to lengths to challenge universities that requested a CRB check and even encouraged his other offenders he met in prison to gain doctorates as he had too.
After my experience with Matt I'm adamant that the only way to prevent paedophilia is chemical castration
Molly Nicholls
It was so hard to believe prison had not taught Matt anything and this charming man would not just cheat on me, but with one of his students.
After my experience with Matt I'm adamant the only way to prevent paedophilia is chemical castration.
A sexual attraction to children comes from deep within and, as my experience proves, isn’t something that goes away.
Locking people up to languish in prison is not going to change a sexual preference. Nor is ‘conversion therapy'. You can't rehabilitate a person's sexual persuasion.
Chemical castration is simply a medication one takes, as one would do with any other unwanted symptom.
Paedophiles like Matt should follow suit and take the pill.
I still believe in giving everyone a second chance. Third? Fourth? Fifth? Not so much.
The same can be said about love rat Jeremy Forrest who once released from prison made a beeline for an employee 15 years his junior – while he was married.
Leopards don't change their spots.
*Names have been changed
