July 2012 Foster mother banned from having unsupervised contact with children A former foster mother has been banned from having unsupervised contact with children after admitting having sexual affairs with two teenaged boys. Jane Riches, 57, had regular sex sessions with the two boys after starting physical relationships with both as soon as they turned 16. She believed she was in love with the boys, even though one of them was less than a third of her age, Exeter Crown Court was told. Riches acted as a foster mother for many years, bringing up children at her home in Drewsteignton, near Exeter, but has now been banned from living or working with young people. Riches, of Tenantspiece Cottages, Drewsteignton, admitted four offences of causing a young person to engage in sexual activity and one of an indecent assault on a 15-year-old boy. She was jailed for 12 months, suspended for two years and ordered to receive supervision by judge John Neligan. He banned her from sharing a house with anyone under 18 as a condition of a Sexual Offences Prevention order. She will also have to sign on the sex offenders register for ten years. Miss Mary McCarthy, prosecuting, said the first offence was against a 15-year-old boy who Riches had known in Berkshire and then in Devon, where she moved in the 1990s. She admitted kissing him when he was 15 and having sex with him after he was 16, but that was not an offence at the time. She went on to have sex more than 200 times with another boy when he was aged 16 to 18 and living in Drewsteigton and she was in her 50s. On both occasions she believed the relationships were consensual and both parties were in love with each other. Miss Fiona Elder, defending, said the stress of the case had caused her client physical and mental illness which had delayed her trial and increased the pressure on her. She said Riches had become involved in the relationships at a time when she was isolated and lonely but that she is now reunited with her husband and living with him.