Educating Cardiff teacher is spared jail after sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl he had offered a lift home
Arwyn Davies, who appeared in Channel 4's Educating Cardiff, the documentary series that also featured Gareth Ritter, the assistant head who changed his guilty plea mid-trial after initially denying a 2015 sexual assault.
Gareth Ritter, 44, formerly assistant head and music teacher at Willows High School in Cardiff, walked free from Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court on Wednesday after Judge Dyfed Llion Thomas handed him a 33-month prison term, suspended for 30 months. Ritter had lured the 17-year-old to his Cardiff Bay flat under the pretence of a quick stop en route to dropping her home, then pinned her against a wall and kissed her as she repeatedly tried to resist. He was also placed on the sex offenders' register for life.
Ritter, a four-time winner of Welsh Conductor of the Year, was reportedly "giggling" in the aftermath of the assault rather than offering any apology to his victim.
The victim did not come forward voluntarily; police discovered indecent images of her on Ritter's phone and tablet while pursuing a separate, unrelated investigation.
The judge described it as a "cruel assault on a young woman by an older man who had isolated her in that flat and carried it out for his own sexual satisfaction."
