A MATHS teacher helping out on a field trip abroad is said to have asked a drunk pupil to perform a sex act upon him.

Prosecutors allege teacher Neville Buckle invited the girl, then 17, and her friend back to his hotel room on one of the last nights of the trip.

It is claimed he encouraged the teenagers to play spin the bottle and truth or dare, getting one of them to kiss his leg and quizzing them on their sexual experiences.

A jury heard he massaged his alleged victim as she lay half naked on his hotel bed, before persuading her to perform a sex act on him.

Prosecutors say the encounter, said to have taken place on a school trip in July 2007, represented an abuse of trust by the teacher.

Buckle, 48, denies any wrongdoing.

Opening the case at Swindon Crown Court yesterday, David Maunder said the question for the jury was simply whether the alleged meeting took place, not whether or not the sexual activity was consensual.

“It is alleged that in, probably, July 2007 at a time when this defendant was employed as a teacher, he engaged in sexual acts with a young girl who was at that time 17-years-old.”

“Plainly, the crown says by virtue of that fact he would have known or certainly should have known the complainant’s age at the time and plainly knew he was in a position of trust by dint of his employment at that school.”

Jurors were told Buckle had joined pupils on the trip abroad because organisers needed him to chaperone male pupils on the holiday.

On the final night, Buckle was said to have fetched the older pupils booze as they relaxed after end-of-trip festivities described by Mr Maunder as a cross between a toga party and Britain’s Got Talent.

Buckle walked his alleged victim and her friend up to their room. It was claimed he invited them back into his bedroom, where he molested one of the girls. He got one of them to kiss his leg as they played game “spin the bottle” and asking them about their sexual history in a game of “truth or dare”.

He massaged one of the girls as she lay on the bed, asking her to take off her top. During the massage, Buckle was said to have turned the discussion to sex – offering to “teach her what to do”. He stripped off his underwear and she performed a sex act upon him, stopping when she said she felt sick.

The girl was said to have given the maths teacher a wide berth for the rest of the holiday.

She saw him at school the following term, Mr Maunder said: “He acted as if everything was perfectly normal. She couldn’t handle it and ended up dropping out of school very soon afterwards.”

The girl mentioned the incident to her mother in 2011 and to her boyfriend in 2017, but it wasn’t until she suffered a breakdown after seeing him at a sporting fixture that she reported it to detectives.

Buckle, of Stainswick Lane, Shrivenham, denies sexual activity with a girl aged 13 to 17 by an adult in a position of trust.

The trial continues.