The primary school teacher was floored when she was targeted by a ‘sniggering’ pupil who ‘made a video’ of her having sex with two of her colleagues, prompting her to leave her job
A primary school teacher has shared her traumatic experience after a Year Four student created a graphic deepfake video of her in a sexual act with two other staff members. It comes as she has called for children to be banned from accessing artificial intelligence (AI) as it poses more harm than good.
Megan — not her real name — is a seasoned educator with over 20 years of teaching under her belt, but was hit with the most “disturbing” incident of her career in 2021. An eight-year-old girl used photos from the school website to create a deepfake video that falsely showed Megan and two other teachers having a threesome.
The London-based teacher is now shedding light on the damaging effects of deepfake sexual abuse. She also spoke out on how she was compelled to leave the school when the “sniggering” young girl’s behaviour wasn’t taken seriously.
One day, the unnamed pupil approached Megan in the playground, claiming to have found a picture of her online via a Google search, which showed her standing by a mountain, according to the Mirror. Then, just a few weeks later, the unimaginable occurred when parents raised concerns about an explicit video of her and other teachers that had been circulated in the children’s WhatsApp group.
It quickly became apparent that the child who shared the video was not the one who made it, and the girl who had approached Megan during playtime was actually the one to blame. The girl who shared the video was “mortified” and compelled to apologise in a meeting with her mother and Megan, while the girl who created the clip “showed no remorse”.
Megan recounted the chilling experience: “She was just sniggering in the school meetings with her parents; it was all very strange. What was most disturbing was how incredibly young she was: eight or nine years old. To even know what a threesome is at that age is shocking enough, never mind creating a deepfake.”
Megan never actually managed to see the deepfake, as it had been wiped from the pupils’ devices before the wave of complaints had even reached her. In the aftermath, she allegedly found the school’s response unsupportive to her concerns, being forced to go through the experience alone.
She revealed: “The assistant head, who was also featured in the video, didn’t want to involve the union. The other teacher, a male teacher, also didn’t want to push it; it was really just me following it up.
“Some schools are cautious when things like this happen. They don’t want drama or any bad press leaking out. This meant the girl wasn’t excluded (not even just for the day), and she wasn’t encouraged to apologise. There were no real consequences for her at all. There was just a single meeting with her mum.”
Despite Megan not being present for the discussion, it appeared the youngster wasn’t being protected from explicit material at home. It later came to light that she had previously filmed herself mimicking an explicit act with a sex toy, whilst also creating another clip where she pretended to pole dance.
Although Megan pushed for a follow-up meeting, she claims the headteacher brushed her worries aside completely. Megan revealed: “‘They’re just children’, they told me. I found that really upsetting; what they had done was wrong. Without much rigmarole, then, I was back in class again, teaching all the children who had seen the video. It was very awkward and uncomfortable.
“I got advice from the union, who said that what had happened was illegal and that the school should have followed it up properly. I had another meeting with the school, but they didn’t want to pursue it any further. A year later, I left the school. I just felt very alone.”
Looking ahead, Megan, whose self-assurance was badly damaged by this incident, worries that deepfake exploitation will only escalate, and thinks the UK ought to mirror Australia’s approach by prohibiting under-16s from accessing platforms like Facebook, TikTok and Instagram.
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