THE jury in the trial of a school head accused of having sex with a teenage boy has gone out to consider its verdict.

After a seven-day trial at Durham Crown Court, jurors have begun deliberations in the trial of Anne Lakey, the acclaimed chief executive of the County Durham Federation of Schools.

Ms Lakey is alleged to have conducted a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy in the late 1980s, when she was in her late 20s.

She is accused of “grooming” the impressionable boy, who was not a pupil at her school, before regularly having sex with him at her home in Stanley, County Durham over a period of several months.

The 54-year-old, of Oxhill Villas, Stanley, denies four charges of indecent assault and two of encouraging a child to commit an act of gross indecency.