A SUFFOLK mum told today how her former graphics teacher subjected her family to an X-rated campaign after a bitter marriage split.Mother-of-two Sarah Titchmarsh described how her mum Maureen met Westbourne High School teacher John Troupe when she was a pupil of his and her mum then went on to marry him.

By Lisa Baxter

A SUFFOLK mum told today how her former graphics teacher subjected her family to an X-rated campaign after a bitter marriage split.

Mother-of-two Sarah Titchmarsh described how her mum Maureen met Westbourne High School teacher John Troupe when she was a pupil of his and her mum then went on to marry him.

But eight years after the couple started living together, grandmother Maureen Troupe left her husband and his behaviour took a dramatic turn for the worse which effected an entire extended family and disrupted life on a quiet village cul-de-sac.

Mrs Titchmarsh, who lives just doors away from her ex-stepdad in East Bergholt, told how the harassment started shortly after her 57-year-old mum walked out of the home she shared with John Troupe.

"When mum left him... he started," said the 30-year-old.

She told how Troupe disrupted a family barbecue by holding up a banner emblazoned with "things about my mum".

And on another occasion, her ex-stepdad held up a sexually explicit picture of her mother in the street for public view. "Around about July time, he'd gone past our house and my husband was there and they had words which obviously got him rattled because he started waving the photo. He obviously thought it was funny and would get at us," she said.

"I don't know if the neighbours saw."

Her mum was "very upset" by the whole episode, she said. "She couldn't go to court to see him plead guilty because she was too upset. She'd thought about it but when the day came she couldn't do it."

When Troupe first started seeing her mother, Mrs Titchmarsh said she was fond of her new stepdad.

"To begin with we got on well. He was nice," she said. "He was my teacher at school and seemed a very nice person but people like that, you don't know what they're like until they get closer.

"Now we just ignore each other. We'll never speak again."

Troupe and her mother are now divorced, Mrs Titchmarsh said.