Teacher ban after a 'sexualised' relationship with a 16-year-old pupil

The husband of the career woman who dumped the body of her baby in a garden drain is a disgraced teacher who sent sexual emails to a 16-year-old pupil.

Sinead Connett was jailed yesterday after she wrapped up the body of her newborn son William, kept it in her car for up to three days and hid him in a drain behind her parents' home in Grimsby. The body lay undiscovered for three years.

Even after her conviction, it is still not known exactly how the baby died because of the web of lies Connett wove in police interviews.

The little boy was found to have a fractured skull, although this may have been caused by a shovel used to extract his body. Connett eventually told police he was stillborn.

It emerged today that Connett's husband, former history teacher Jonathan Layfield, was in an inappropriate relationship with one of his school pupils at the time of her pregnancy.

He started the pupil-teacher relationship around a year before Connett gave birth to the baby in secret and it continued until well after she gave birth, a professional standards report reveals.

It is not known whether Connett found out about the affair until Layfield resigned his post in disgrace nine months she hid their baby's body. 

Layfield had a relationship with the pupil between July 2012 and May 2014, a report later found. Connett's pregnancy was confirmed in January 2013 and she gave birth in August that year.

Emails he sent to the pupil were 'undoubtedly sexualised' and 'on one occasion revealed that he had fantasies of having sexual intercourse with [her]', a teaching standards panel later found. 

He taught history at the Vandyke Upper School, Leighton Buzzard and sent the girl a string of messages late at night from his personal email account.

Layfield, now 28, then kissed the girl at school in 2014. He resigned his job when the relationship emerged and was banned from teaching at a hearing later that year.