A teacher who starred in Channel 4's Educating Cardiff has avoided jailed after admitting to sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl.
Gareth Ritter had a leading role in the hit documentary series as assistant head of Willows High School.
Last month, the 44-year-old married music teacher from Bryngwyn, Monmouthshire, pleaded guilty to sexual assault at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court.
He previously denied intentionally touching the child without consent when he was in his 30s but changed his plea three days into the trial.
Ritter earlier pleaded guilty to two offences of possessing and one of distributing indecent images of the then 17-year-old who later reported him over the alleged sexual assault.
Gareth Ritter had a leading role in the documentary series Educating Cardiff as assistant head of Willows High School
Ritter outside Merthyr Crown Court. The 44-year-old admitted to sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl at a flat in Cardiff Bay in June 2015
Judge Recorder Dyfed Llion Thomas today sentenced Ritter to 33 months suspended for 30 months.
He said: 'It was a cruel assault on a young woman by an older man who had isolated her in that flat and had carried it out for his own sexual satisfaction.'
The judge adjourned the decision on a restraining order and sexual harm prevention order until Thursday.
A court heard Ritter was 'well respected' in the community and the teenager, who was not a pupil at his school, 'looked up' to him after he told her she would 'go far'.
Earlier in the trial, the jury was told that the music teacher, who was 33 at the time, offered to give the victim a lift home from an event in 2015.
On the way, Ritter told the girl he needed to stop off for 'five minutes' to check a flat he owned in Cardiff Bay.
The court heard that Ritter took the girl into the flat and showed her the view from his balcony.
He then allegedly commented on the dress she was wearing.
Ritter then allegedly touched the girl - who was not a pupil at his school - without permission.
She told the court: 'He mentioned his wife did not know about the flat and he liked to keep his money separate. He made several comments about how I looked.'
Ritter then reportedly said 'Look at your t**s' and began to giggle before moving his hand to touch her.
She added: 'He put his right hand on my lower back and moved down to my bum.'
Ritter then asked the girl if she wanted to see the bedroom and went inside.
But she told the jury she did not follow him, and when he came out of the room he touched her again and put his tongue inside her mouth.
She said: 'My back was towards the wall and Gareth was in front of me.'
He then allegedly put one hand out behind her back and down to her bum and then leaned in and kissed the teenager.
'I remember his tongue going into my mouth. I was against the wall and could not step back,' she added.
'I turned my face away. I couldn't go anywhere.'
The court heard that she put her hands out and told him: 'I don't do this. I am a good girl.
I felt really uncomfortable. I had nowhere to go. I found it hard to say stop and did not know how to react.'
Ritter allegedly agreed to take her home but told her to keep what happened 'between us'.
She told the court that Ritter asked her 'are you going to tell anyone?'
'What do you say in that situation? He was someone I looked up to. How do you confront that? Do I argue with someone giving me a lift home?' she said.
Pictured: Ritter during his appearence on Educating Cardiff
Prosecutor Andrew Davies told the hearing in October that Ritter lied to police in a first interview after the complainant reported him in 2022 over the alleged 2015 sexual assault.
She reported the matter after police informed her that they had found indecent images of her on Ritter's phone and that he had shared them.
The images had been taken consensually with the complainant and her partner in 2015 before the alleged sexual assault by Ritter.
However, the images had been shared without either of their permission or knowledge, the court had already heard.
The complainant told police she was unaware Ritter had the explicit images of her, Merthyr Crown Court was told.
When she reported in 2022 that Ritter had sexually assaulted her in the flat in June 2015, the former teacher was interviewed by police in October that year.
During this interview, Ritter denied owning a flat in Cardiff Bay, taking the complainant there, or giving her a lift home on the date she claimed he assaulted her there.
'I don't own a flat. I have never owned a flat,' he told police in the interview read out in court.
He also told officers he had been a teacher for 22 years and denied claims he had called the teenager 'fit and sexy' in front of other people.
After further investigation, Ritter was interviewed again on December 13, 2023.
It was at this point he told police that he did have a flat in Cardiff Bay and had taken the complainant there on the date, as alleged, but denied sexually assaulting her there.
Ritter won the Pearson Teaching Award for innovative use of technology in 2013
Ritter claimed to police that he had told the 17-year-old she could wait in the car outside while he spent five minutes checking the flat while he was giving her a lift home from an evening event in Cardiff.
Instead she chose to go up with him, he said.
'What [the complainant] suggested happened just did not,' Ritter told police.
'That's just not me. I would not.'
Asked by the officer why he did not give a full account in the first interview the year before, Ritter does not respond with an explanation.
Ritter worked as a music teacher and assistant head during the Channel 4 show and in 2013, he won the Pearson award for innovative use of technology.
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