Near to the end of term in the summer, one of the primary teachers came to me, with a video camera. It was a school camera, one we kept for all teachers and classes to use in lessons. They were stored in the IT classroom where anyone could access them when they needed to. The teacher had taken it to use with her upper primary pupils, but she’d checked to see if there was anything on the memory card before they used it. I’m very glad she did, because when she watched it she discovered footage of two of the older students having sex, late at night in one of the classrooms.

I felt myself inhale sharply. Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn’t that.

Bradley and Courtney? I asked, on instinct, thinking of the secretive signs of affection I’d seen passing between the two of them. Jane nodded.

You’ve met them, I assume? They’re both good kids who had a rough start to their lives. I watched the start of the video, and it was clear that someone set up the camera and left it running for a while before the two of them came in. Her signing was sharp, belying the anger she felt at the memory. When I asked the two of them about it they were genuinely mortified. I pride myself on knowing when any of my students are lying to me, and these two knew nothing about this video. They each said that they’d received an email from the other, saying they should meet in that classroom, yet each denied sending a message. It was a set-up.

Jane’s face twisted. I know I should have informed the governors immediately. Of course I should have. But here were two vulnerable teenagers, underage, who had been manipulated, and then the video left where any of the children could have watched it. I decided that before I took it to the governors I would investigate and see if I could find out who might have done this.

She stood up and paced around behind her chair. You have to understand, I had no way of knowing if it was a staff member or a student. If I went straight to the governors with it, the story would have been out within a day, and whoever was responsible would have known to keep their head down. I wanted the element of surprise, wanted whoever it was to think they could get away with doing things like this. Then, they might become overconfident, and I would be able to catch them at it.