Sex shame teacher bags lotto funds for support group for criminals

Website offers offenders advice on dealing with discrimination

- SALLY HIND

A SEX shame teacher struck off over her affair with a pupil has bagged public funding to set up a support group for fellow criminals.

Eppie Sprung - who was caught in a lay-by with a 17-year-old boy - is speaking out about how being a convicted sex offender has impacted her life in a candid blog as she heads up her new organisation.

Now the 37-year-old's venture has been handed thousands from the public purse through a grant from the National Lottery Community Fund, which she says will help those with criminal records "navigate discrimination".

On her blog, Sprung writes: "I'm Eppie, mum, wife, daughter, sister, friend, volunteer, business owner and sex offender.

"That's not something that's comfortable to write and it's certainly not something that's comfortable to live with. But here we are. I made a series of bad decisions a long time ago that hurt a lot of people and led to me living with the title of sex offender for the rest of my life."