A former Jackson High School science teacher apparently will not fight charges that he conducted a sexual relationship with a student.
Robert Vincent Beresford on Thursday, Jan. 29 told Snohomish County Superior Court Judge David Hulbert he will let a judge decide his case based on some 450 pages of police reports and witness statements.
He is scheduled for trial before Judge Kenneth Cowsert on April 5. Under the plan, he will not put up a defense.
Such a bench trial almost certainly will result in a conviction. Beresford was charged with two counts of first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor because of his status as a teacher. The charges are felonies.
Deputy prosecutor Janice Albert alleged that Beresford and the 17-year-old girl engaged in sex numerous times. He was removed from the classroom and placed on administrative leave in October after the allegations came to the attention of district officials.
The Everett School District sent Beresford a letter notifying him that it believed there was probable cause to fire him, district spokeswoman Gay Campbell said Thursday.
Campbell said Beresford appealed that decision and asked for a hearing before an administrative law judge. Campbell said she doesn’t know what effect the latest developments will have on the hearing.
Beresford first met the girl when he was her teacher at Gateway Middle School, Albert said. The two became better acquainted when she worked at Jackson High School in the summer doing clerical work.
On the last day of summer school, she helped Beresford move his classroom, and that’s when he first kissed her, Albert said. They kept in touch on the telephone and eventually engaged in a sexual relationship, she said.
The allegations came to light when the girl’s mother overheard part of a telephone conversation in October.
Beresford first came to the district in 1996, teaching at Gateway. He left to teach in the Edmonds School District in 1998 before returning to the Everett district in 2000.
Jim Haley is a reporter with The Herald in Everett.
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