Former Burbank teacher Amy Beck appears in BBC documentary on registered sex offenders

Former Burbank teacher Amy Beck, who turned herself into police in 2010 for having a sexual relationship with her former student, shared her story with BBC journalist Louis Theroux for a documentary on registered sex offenders living in Los Angeles.

VIDEO BBC Louis Therouxs L.A. Stories Episode 3 Among the Sex Offenders: Amy Beck interview

In the episode that the BBC broadcast in April, Beck said that being without her children has been the hardest part of her current living situation.

When Theroux asked about Beck’s offense and how it happened, she told him she knew the boy’s family well.

“They were wonderful people,” she said. “They were almost like my own family in a sense. And then things got strange with this boy and myself and we ended up having this affair for six months.”

Beck, who was married, and a mother to three young children, had sex with the 14-year-old student at the David Starr Jordan Middle School campus, according to court records.

The boy had been hired by her to baby-sit her children and he worked as her classroom aide. Records show she also gave the boy’s family about $300 to $400 per month.

The sexual relationship with him spanned from March to September 2009.

In March 2010, Beck resigned from her sixth-grade teaching job at Jordan, where she had taught for about 10 years, and surrendered to police.

She pleaded no contest to having unlawful sexual intercourse and committing a lewd act on a child, and served less than a year in prison.

“I’m so glad it’s done, because at the time, I thought, ‘What am I going to do now? How am I supposed to end it with him? And what about my husband and the kids? It was sort of like, ‘Why did I do this?’” she told Theroux.

When Theroux asked Beck if she had an inappropriate attraction to young males in the past, she denied ever being attracted to any other boy.

“I think it was more that as I got to know them, and the family, and him in particular, I think that’s where I was wanting someone to love me…I think that there’s so much to it, it would be hard to put it in a nutshell for you.”

A lawsuit that the boy’s family filed against Beck and Burbank Unified in 2011 accused school officials of not training students and teachers to recognize the signs of child abuse.

“At the time, how did you justify it to yourself,” Theroux asked Beck.

“I think I justified it by saying that I loved him and he loved me,” she replied. “That’s how.”

Court records show Beck reached a $25,000 settlement with the boy earlier this year.

More recently, the young man settled with the Burbank Unified School District for $150,000.