Teacher's aide who said pupils thought he looked like Zayn Malik jailed for underage sex
A TEACHER’S aide who claimed pupils fancied him because he looks like One Direction singer Zayn Malik has been jailed for five years for having sex with an underage girl.
Hamid Bhatti has been jailed for five-years after having sex with underage girls
Hamid Bhatti boasted how female pupils swooned over him because of his resemblance to the One Direction heart-throb.
But Bhatti, 24, took advantage of the 15-year-old girl’s crush on him and slept with her 14 times, a court heard.
Their relationship was revealed after the girl’s mother found a love note from him saying: “You were amazing last night as always.”
Bhatti told a jury he had been pursued by the love sick teenager because of his pop star looks.
He claimed she told him: “I think you’re lush, I’m going to marry you and have your babies.
“It was mostly this girl and her friends. But I was quite young and of Pakistani descent.
“They said I looked like Zayn Malik.”
Bhatti admitted having sex with the girl but only after she was 16.
The teaching assistant boasted that the girls said he looked like Zayn Malik from One Direction
But jurors found him guilty of sexual activity with a minor and he was jailed for five years at Taunton Crown Court, Somerset.
They said I looked like Zayn Malik
Judge David Ticehurst said: “It’s clear she was a vulnerable girl who had difficulties in her life.
“Your presence in her life only compounded those difficulties.
“Your interest in her was for your own sexual gratification and you chose to abuse her.
“It is doubly regrettable that you were a teaching assistant at the time you met the girl.
“Your duty was to support the staff and the students at the school and instead you abused a young girl and took advantage of her crush.
“You will never be able to work in teaching ever again, and I cannot think of a person less suitable to do so.”
Staff at the school became suspicious of Bhatti in May 2014 after the teenager was spotted blowing him a kiss through a classroom window.
Former One Direction singer Zayn Malik before he left the band in 2015
An astonished teacher watched as Bhatti “caught” the kiss and blew it back.
Both insisted the kiss was a joke and there was no sexual relationship
But he was sacked from the school in Taunton for improper conduct.
The girl lied several times to protect Bhatti even when she turned up at school with a black eye.
Bhatti was later issued with an anti-abduction notice banned him from seeing the girl.
Jurors at Taunton Crown Court found him guilty of sexual activity with a minor
But he simply ignored it, the court heard.
The truth was finally revealed after the girl went missing in February last year.
Police went to Bhatti’s house in Taunton but he claimed he had not seen her for some time.
But officers were suspicious and returned later.
They crept around to the rear of the property and spotted her.
Bhatti was put on the sex offenders register indefinitely.