A FORMER Forest brass band conductor and music teacher who starred in a fly-on-the wall school TV documentary has admitted sexually assaulting a teenage girl at his Cardiff Bay flat.

Gareth Ritter, who was musical director of Lydbrook Band and a four-time winner of Welsh Conductor of the Year, had denied the charge dating back to 2015, but changed his plea three days into a trial at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court.

The 44-year-old, from Bryngwyn near Raglan, also admitted possessing and distributing unlawful underage images of the victim, who was 17 at the time.

Former assistant headteacher Ritter, who starred in the Channel 4 documentary Educating Cardiff shot at the inner-city’s Willows High School in 2015, was known for his use of technology in the classroom.

He stepped down as musical director of the Lydbrook and Ebbw Valley and brass bands after he appeared before Cardiff magistrates charged with the offences in November 2024.

Before changing his plea to the assault charge, the victim told the jury Ritter was giving her a lift home from an event in the city and they stopped off at his Cardiff Bay flat.

While on the balcony overlooking the city, she said the then 33-year-old made a comment about her breasts before touching her bottom and kissing her, and then asking if she wanted to see the bedroom.

"One hand went around my back, it dropped to my bum and he lent in and kissed me," she said.

"I remember being against the wall, I couldn't step back, I remember him kissing me.

"I turned my face away, my hands were on him, I wasn't forceful, I held out my hands on his chest. It was a light push but not forceful.

"I felt really uncomfortable. I had nowhere to go. I found it hard to say stop and did not know how to react."

On the way home, he repeatedly asked her if she was going to tell anyone.

"Gareth was someone I really looked up to. How do you confront that? I'd never been in that situation," she added, saying she just wanted to "brush it under the carpet".

But contacted by police years later after images of her from an intimate video conversation with another man were found on Ritter's phone, she decided to report the assault incident.

Interviewed in 2022 by South Wales Police, Ritter, who is married, denied giving the teenager a lift, knowing about the Cardiff Bay flat and taking her there.

But a year later he admitted to officers he hadn't told the truth, leading to charges in 2024 and his subsequent suspension from teaching by the Education Workforce Council schools regulator.

Before changing his plea, Ritter had earlier told the court he had gone to the flat to collect a bracelet for a colleague and nothing had happened with the girl.

Judge Dyfed Llion Thomas told him a custodial sentence was an option, and he was released on conditional bail for pre-sentence reports until November 4.