A Suffolk woman has been warned she could be jailed after a jury convicted her of having sex with a schoolboy nearly four decades ago when she was in her early 20s.
Before Ipswich Crown Court was 60-year-old Gillian Mitchell of Butt Road, Great Cornard, who had denied five offences of indecent assault and two of gross indecency with a boy.
On Monday, a jury found her guilty of one offence of indecent assault but cleared her of the remaining six charges following a week-long trial.
Judge Nicola Talbot-Hadley agreed to adjourn sentence until December 1 for a pre-sentence report but said there was a possibility Mitchell could face a custodial penalty.
However, she said she needed to be fully appraised of Mitchell's circumstances before making that decision.
The boy was aged 12 to 14 years old at the time of the alleged offences which are said to have taken place in the 1980s.
Giving evidence, Mitchell accused the alleged victim, who is now 50, of telling “a pack of lies”.
Cross-examined by prosecution counsel, Marc Brown, Mitchell denied that she had fantasised about having sex with a teenager and that there had been “something alluring about taking the virginity of a 13-year-old boy”.
In answer to a suggestion by Mr Brown that she had had sex with the boy for her own selfish needs she replied: “No. That’s disgusting”.
She also denied that she had found teenage boys attractive and that she had wanted to be “a naughty older woman”.
It has been alleged that Mitchell touched the boy’s bottom at a wedding reception when he was 12 and later had sex with him.
Mitchell was interviewed by the police in 2020 and denied having any sexual contact with the alleged victim.
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