Former Educating Cardiff teacher faces court over alleged 2015 sexual assault
Former assistant head teacher Gareth Ritter, featured in Channel 4's Educating Cardiff, denied a charge of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old in 2015.
Gareth Ritter, 44, a former assistant head and music teacher at Willows High who appeared in Channel 4's Educating Cardiff, appeared in Merthyr Crown Court and entered a not-guilty plea to a 2015 sexual assault charge involving a 17-year-old. The complainant recounted that Ritter gave her a lift, stopped at his Cardiff Bay flat, made inappropriate remarks about her dress, touched her without permission on the balcony, and later forced a kiss and further unwanted contact inside the flat.
She said he tried to persuade her not to report the incident, emphasizing his influence and popularity. In a separate 2022 investigation, police seized Ritter's phone and discovered explicit images of the girl, which had been taken consensually by her partner and shared without consent; Ritter later pleaded guilty to two offences related to those images. The Education Workforce Council Wales has listed him as ineligible for registration under an interim suspension order as of December 2024. His defence lawyer maintains that no inappropriate conduct occurred that night.
