A 55-year-old music teacher who allegedly seduced a 14-year-old student, he also got pregnant, has avoided prison by marrying her.
Former conductor Yuriy Bondarenko allegedly had sex with the young flautist, whose name has not been released, when she was only 14-years-old.
Prosecutors in Russia’s second city of St Petersburg say she had an abortion after the teacher got her pregnant.
Bondarenko was charged with having sexual intercourse with a minor but the case was prolonged because he said he was unwell. According to reports, the judge had warned him he was facing a one-year sentence in a penal colony and a three-year ban from teaching.
However the teacher is not going to receive any punishment after it was revealed he’d married the girl once she’d turned 18.
Bondarenko divorced his previous wife, who he’d spent his whole adult life with, in December in order to remarry. Meanwhile, the teenager had been trying to convince her parents she was in love with her professor and the feeling was mutual.
The family fell out and she was reportedly forced to leave her parents house and move in with a friend.
Prosecutors dropped the case after the couple married, suggesting ‘pursuing it was no longer in the public interest’.
The girl’s family are believed to be appalled by the decision as they believe the marriage is a sham as the ‘newlyweds’ live in separate flats.
They’re convinced the marriage is a ‘charade designed purely to get the pervert professor off the hook’.
Neither the teacher nor his young bride have commented on the case which has sparked a lively debate on internet forums.
Certainly a different law there to here in the UK.
