Although nobody saw them so much as holding hands, David Withyman, a teenaged student at the special needs school, and his teacher, Anna Blackburn, spent months in a sexual relationship.

Ms Blackburn was warned by a confidante that the affair “would come back to haunt her’’.

Three years after she lost her job at the local school in Bathurst, a District Court judge, Michael Elkaim, yesterday ordered her to pay her

former student $120,293 over a liaison he said amounted to sexual abuse.

Mr Withyman, who was transferred to Carenne because of his disturbed

personality and learning

disability, sued the school and Ms Blackburn for damages.

He claimed the end of the relationship, in October 2003, triggered his spiral into crime.

He repeatedly assaulted Ms Blackburn, breached apprehended violence orders and threatened to kill her. He was jailed for firearms offences and hospitalised for psychiatric treatment; she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress.

Ms Blackburn sought damages for the criminal acts he inflicted and was awarded $69,475.

The 36-year-old steadfastly denied any sexual contact with Mr Withyman, 11 years her junior. But evidence from a former confidante, Diana Minato, satisfied the judge that teacher and student had had a sexual relationship for about five months.

Ms Minato recalled Ms Blackburn saying in 2003 that she had sex with a student at her school and “there was something that attracted her to him – an element of excitement about him being younger’’.

The court heard the women’s friendship soured in 2008 when Ms Blackburn, preparing to fight her dismissal in the Industrial Relations Commission, asked Ms Minato to sign an affidavit denying knowledge of a sexual relationship with Mr Withyman.

She later abandoned her unfair dismissal claim.

“Ms Blackburn took advantage, albeit with the plaintiff’s enthusiastic, but markedly immature, consent to embark on a sexual escapade that, from her point of view, could never have been a long-term commitment. An end disastrous to the plaintiff was inevitable,’’ the judge said.

He found the school did not breach its duty of care to Mr Withyman because Ms Blackburn’s conduct was “an act of such unexpected ‘madness’ that a reasonable person would not have taken precautions to prevent it’’.

Judge Elkaim stayed his judgment while the parties consider appeals.

Kristi McCusker, solicitor, handling the matter noted: “Mr Withyman is pleased to have succeeded against Ms Blackburn, his former teacher but is disappointed that he was not successful against the Department of Education”.

“A stay of proceedings has been put in place to enable an appeal to be lodged and we expect to receive instructions to file an appeal on David’s behalf.”