Ex-husband of teacher who slept with 15-year-old pupil speaks out on ‘darkest days’

A man whose wife cheated on him with a teenager in a field has been left questioning himself after his ex-partner was jailed.

Teacher Kandice Barber, 37, was jailed for six years in 2021 after she was found to have groomed an underage pupil with sexual messages.

A trial heard how the then Mrs Barber sent topless photos to the unnamed student via Snapchat before they had intercourse in a Buckinghamshire field.

Her husband, Danny Barber, initially stuck by his wife, and the couple was pictured walking hand-in-hand away from Aylesbury Crown Court following her guilty verdict two years ago.

But, following the end of their five-year marriage, Mr Barber has told of the deep emotional scars his ex-wife’s actions have left.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, he said he has questioned whether he was “being stupid” and what he had done wrong.

At first, he said he loved and believed his wife while he stood by her during the trial as her “rock”.

She was charged with three counts of causing or inciting a child aged under 16 years to engage in a sexual act, one count of sexual communication with a child, one count of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activities while in a position of trust, and one count of causing a child to watch a sexual act by a person in a position of trust.

He said his wife, “Kan”, who had three children from two previous relationships, was “adamant she was innocent” and even appeared “smiling and bubbly” when he and the children came to visit her in prison.

He felt he was in a prison of his own outside while she was kept away from her fallout behind bars, and, as he stood by her in public, people questioned whether her behaviour was “a family thing”.

The experience saw him go through “the darkest darkest days” as he experienced public backlash.

He told the Mail: “I was the husband of the teacher who slept with a 15-year-old.”

Mr Barber eventually split up with his wife, and has since found a new partner, Charlotte, whom met in June 2022.

He said: “I didn’t tell her about Kan for six weeks because of embarrassment.

“How do you say to someone: ‘Oh by the way, darling, I’m married but my wife’s in prison because she’s been sentenced to six years for having sex with a child’?”

The two are expecting a child together, and Mr Barber has started to “process things and see things differently”, leaving him more hopeful and adamant that if “any teacher ever touched my son I’d want justice”.

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