A TEACHER cleared of having sex with a 15-year-old pupil at a Watford school described his claims as "boastful fantasies".

Jenine Saville-King, 29, who according to the alleged victim regularly indulged in sexual acts with him in her car, at her home and in local hotels, was cleared of all charges yesterday, including sexual activity with a child and abuse of trust.

Outside court, the assistant teacher sobbed and admitted making a "terrible mistake" in becoming involved with the boy.

The pair exchanged thousands of text messages and hundreds emails, and met each other at hotel rooms after school.

Mrs Saville-King said: "First, I want to thank my family, and particularly my husband, Paul, whose support, love and trust has never wavered throughout all these months.

"These allegations were boastful fantasies and dishonest, spiteful untruths.

"But I know too that I made a terrible mistake in allowing myself to become so intensely involved in the emotional and personal problems of this boy.

"But we are talking here about a boy with very real problems and behavioural issues."

Her husband, Paul, said he had never doubted his wife's innocence.

Mrs Saville-King, who lived in Puddingstone Drive, St Albans, and taught in Watford, said the relationship began with her helping the alleged victim, now 18, with school work.

He would come to her continually at breaks and after school, and towards the end of 2004 they began to meet outside school, she said.

Describing their first meeting away from school, when they talked for an hour outside The Leather Bottle pub in Leverstock Green, she broke down in tears.

Her barrister Sarah Foreshaw asked: "Did you know it was wrong?" and she sobbed: "Yes."

She said they had continually exchanged text messages and almost incessant emails after she had left the school in February 2005.

She said she had not been in love with the boy, but might have thought she was at the time.

Ms Foreshaw had suggested, when cross-examing the alleged victim, that he had been trying to blackmail her into sex, but Mrs Saville-King repeatedly denied they had ever discussed having a physical relationship.

When her barrister asked: "What were you getting out of the relationship if it wasn't sex?", she replied: "He was nice to me. He was a comfort to me. He would say nice things about me - that I was pretty and I made him laugh. I was really fond of him."

The jury was shown a photograph of the pair, taken on the alleged victim's mobile phone, in which they appeared to be cheek-to-cheek.

He also claimed they regularly had full sex after his 16th birthday.

The defendant, who gave birth in July 2005 to a baby, that DNA tests have now shown was her husband's, denied that the boy had repeatedly asked if he was the father.

They met three times in hotels including Sopwell Manor in St Albans, but she told the jury this was because the boy had been threatening to kill himself. She said that in the course of the relationship each of them frequently threatened to break it off.

Referring to letters in which she told her pupil "I will prove I can make you happy", and "I will do anything for you", the barrister asked: "Why are you writing like that to a 16-year-old boy?"

She replied: "I can't explain it because I don't know myself. I am embarrassed and ashamed."

Ms Foreshaw asked: "Was the relationship in your view appropriate?" and her client answered: "No."

But she repeatedly denied any sexual contact had occurred or even been discussed.

Mrs Saville-King has moved to Hook in Hampshire, but her husband, giving defence evidence, told the court he did not believe she had been unfaithful.