A former teacher who denies sexually assaulting a teenager has already pleaded guilty to three separate offences of possessing and distributing indecent images of the complainant, a court has heard.
Gareth Ritter, 44, of Great Tyrmynach Farm, Monmouthshire, and former assistant head at Willows High in Cardiff, pleaded not guilty to the charge of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old in Cardiff in 2015 when he appeared at Merthyr Crown Court earlier this week.
Guilty pleas to indecent image offences
On Wednesday September 30, the same court was told that in a separate crown court case on December 23, 2024 Ritter had pleaded guilty to two offences of possessing and one of distributing indecent images of the then 17-year-old who later reported him over the alleged sexual assault.
It is illegal to possess and/or distribute indecent images of anyone under 18 in England and Wales.
Prosecutor Andrew Davies told Wednesday's hearing that Ritter lied to police in a first interview after the complainant reported him in 2022 over the alleged 2015 sexual assault.
Police interviews detailed in court
She reported the matter after police informed her that they had found indecent images of her on Ritter's phone and that he had shared them. The images had been taken consensually with the complainant and her partner in 2015 before the alleged sexual assault by Ritter. However, the images had been shared without either of their permission or knowledge, the court had already heard.
The complainant told police she was unaware Ritter had the explicit images of her and did not know he had them, Merthyr Crown Court was told.
When she reported in 2022 that Ritter had sexually assaulted her in a flat in Cardiff Bay in June 2015, the former teacher was interviewed by police in October 2022.
During this interview, the transcript of which was read out in court, Ritter denied owning a flat in Cardiff Bay, taking the complainant there, or giving her a lift home on the date she claimed he assaulted her there.
"I don't own a flat. I have never owned a flat," he told police in the interview read out in court.
Asked why he thought the complainant would report him for sexual assault he replied: "I can only think she's really annoyed about those photos. Knowing they got out when she thought they were only in a small group of people."
Ritter then went on to tell the officer that he had been a teacher for 22 years and denied claims he had called the teenager "fit and sexy" in front of other people.
Second interview and friend's testimony
After further investigation Ritter was interviewed again on December 13, 2023. This time he told police that he did have a flat in Cardiff Bay and had taken the complainant there on the date, as alleged, but denied sexually assaulting her there.
Ritter claimed to police that he had told the 17-year-old she could wait in the car outside while he spent five minutes checking the flat while he was giving her a lift home from an evening event in Cardiff. Instead she chose to go up with him, he said.
"What [the complainant] suggested happened just did not," Ritter told police. "That's just not me. I would not."
Asked by the officer why he did not give a full account in the first interview the year before, Ritter does not respond with an explanation. "This is a bit of a change of direction," the police officer suggested to Ritter in the transcript of the second interview read out at the hearing on Wednesday.
A friend of the complainant spoke to the court later in the hearing. She said the complainant had also alleged to her that Ritter had sexually assaulted her at the flat in Cardiff Bay in June 2015.
The friend said she had suggested that the complainant tell someone, but she was too worried she wouldn't be believed. Asked by the court why she thought the complainant had not reported it at the time, and why she herself had also not told anyone, the friend said: "I tried to tell [the complainant] she should tell someone but she was too worried and scared and I had to respect her wishes."
She added: "We were young and he [Ritter] had a career and power and connections and a much louder voice. I think it would have been hard to imagine anyone believing her and she did not want it to look bad on her as no one would believe her."
Ritter denies sexual assault and the hearing continues.
