Erotic Fiction Lands Teacher In Hot Water
She insists it is merely a work of fiction designed to encourage her pupils to read more.
But an English teacher's account of pupils' sex fantasies, flirting and truancy has had a devastating impact in the real world.
Leonora Rustamova has been suspended from her post, along with a colleague, prompting mass demonstrations by pupils and a campaign by parents to have them reinstated.
The story - Stop! Don't Read This! - appeared on a self-publishing website. Although it is claimed to be all invention, it features five genuine teenage pupils at Calder High School in Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire.
It contains swearwords, has children skipping lessons, refers to a pupil flirting with a teacher and compares two youngsters to 'gorgeous Mr Gay UK finalists'. The story names several teachers, including real headmaster Stephen Ball, and features pupils missing lessons, stealing phones and setting themselves on fire.
One pupil is described as fantasising and flirting with 39-year-old Miss Rustamova, while she says she would do anything for a smile from another. She writes: 'It's getting harder and harder to see them just as kids.'
Later she describes in the novel how the youngsters practise 'orgasmic moans', which sound like 'the soundtrack to teenage gay porn'.
Two characters are described as sunbathing shirtless, 'looking like gorgeous Mr Gay UK finalists in an area of Britain where there is some pretty stiff competition'.
The book ends with the boys becoming heroes after revealing to police a drugs store beneath the school - although it is noted that some cocaine goes missing before officers arrive.
'I suppose the boys had earned a hell of a ritzy summer holiday,' it says.
Stop! Don't Read This! was withdrawn from the website when the teacher, known affectionately as Miss Rusty, was sent home from the school in mid-January.
The other suspended teacher, Steve Cann, is believed to be a union representative.
The suspensions prompted hundreds of pupils to hold mass demonstrations and create internet pressure groups supporting the pair. Several students taught by Miss Rustamova and Mr Cann said their GCSE studies were suffering because of the teachers' absence.
Former pupil Travis Downs, 17, one of those featured in the book, said pupils were now allowed to wear badges supporting the teachers on their coats but not on their school uniforms.
Miss Rustamova, who is also the school's social cohesion coordinator, has a daughter. Her parents, Christopher and Lois Huck, own a sailing club in Huddersfield.
According to 'Friends of Rusty and Steve', a campaign group set up to reinstate the teachers, Mr Cann was suspended for having 'the guts to stand up for Rusty'. It is understood he took over her class after her suspension.
Chris Ratcliffe, a parent of former pupils, said the book was 'a work of fiction, even though some characters are based on real people'.
He added: 'I don't think there's anything there that would concern parents, unless they're Mary Whitehouse types.
'It's no worse than TV shows like Skins, and just as fictional. I mean, drug dealers under Calder High isn't going to happen.'
Another of the named pupils, who has since left for college, said: 'I can understand why parents might not be happy. But of the five main characters all of us and our parents were fine with it. We like it. It helped us take school seriously.'
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”Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." ~H. L. Mencken
@themorrigan1972
Subject: Teacher suspended after writing 'fictional' book in which her pupils have sexual fantasies about her 
Thu Apr 16, 2009 2:45 pm
<- not an M&M smilie here.
