BORDEAUX, Sept 29: A 15-year-old British schoolgirl who ran away to France with a married teacher twice her age was expected to return home on Saturday, while he was in prison awaiting extradition.

Jeremy Forrest, a 30-year-old maths teacher, and his pupil Megan Stammers were found in the southwestern city of Bordeaux on Friday, 10 days after they took the ferry from Dover.

Forrest was being held in Gradignan prison in southwest France pending a court hearing on Tuesday, and has said he will not oppose being handed over to British authorities, according to his lawyer Daniel Lalanne.

Forrest, seen by a witness on Friday evening in the corridor of a Bordeaux court without handcuffs and “a long face”, surrounded by police, was “very disappointed by the sudden brake put on his romance,” Lalanne said.

“He is not on the run, he was arrested while he was in Bordeaux looking for work in order to carry on his romance in a country that might be more understanding,” the lawyer added.

Under French law, a 15-year-old is not considered a minor in sexual terms, unlike in Britain, where the age of consent is 16.—AFP