A former headteacher from beloved Channel 4 show Educating Yorkshire has hit back after being labelled a ‘paedophile and groomer’ for striking up a relationship with a woman nearly 30 years his junior.
Jonny Mitchell, 53, became an unlikely heartthrob when he starred on the show as the headteacher at Thornhill Community Academy, in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, more than a decade ago.
At the time he lived with his wife Lisa and their three daughters, but it’s fair to say his life has taken a dramatic turn.
Mr Mitchell separated from his wife in 2014 and has since moved on with a 25-year-old former police officer called Abi McMahon, who frequently speaks about their age gap relationship on her TikTok channel.
The couple have maintained their relationship is ‘completely normal’ and that they have ‘so much in common’, despite the significant age gap.
Although Ms McMahon would have been in Year 9 when her now partner was on Educating Yorkshire, she has previously revealed she went to school in Nottingham – the city she grew up in.
They couple met for the first time during a night out in Leeds in September 2021 when Ms McMahon accidentally spilt a cocktail on Mr Mitchell.
The pair began talking from there, exchanged numbers and decided to ‘go on a few dates’ before completely falling for each other.
Ms McMahon, a former police officer turned blogger from Nottingham, has now moved into her older partner’s rented stone cottage in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
Jonny Mitchell (pictured), 53, became an unlikely heartthrob when he starred on the show as the headteacher at Thornhill Community Academy, in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, more than a decade ago
The couple have maintained their relationship is ‘completely normal’ and that they have ‘so much in common’, despite the significant age gap. (Jonny Mitchell, 53, pictured with his girlfriend, Abs, 25)
Hitting back at the haters, Mr Mitchell told Sheron Boyle for The Sun: ‘I’ve been branded a paedophile, a groomer, a dirty old man and far worse.’
‘I never thought I’d fall in love again let alone with a woman so much younger than me but you can’t legislate who you meet.’
Taking a similar stance against the online trolls, Ms McMahon added: ‘I’ve been labelled online as a gold digger, an embarrassment and the worst was one who told me to kill myself.
‘People will think I must have daddy issues – I definitely don’t. I want people to simply not judge others not so quickly.’
Mr Mitchell, who is now semi-retired after winning national acclaim as the original head teacher in the first series of Educating Yorkshire 12 years ago, separated from his wife in 2014 and the couple divorced a year later.
The ex-teacher, who has been with his new partner for four years, said his marriage had broken down and that they would have separated earlier had they not had young children.
Mr Mitchell admits that some family members had reservations at the start of his relationship with a younger woman, but were put at ease when they met Ms McMahon.
Ms McMahon, who has 29,000 followers on TikTok, is on a journey to break down any stigma about age gap relationships and regularly posts videos about it.
Mr Mitchell stole the nation’s hearts when he appeared in the eight-part documentary in 2013.
The show first broadcast more than a decade ago and was based on the same format as the BAFTA winning series, Educating Essex, which came out in 2011.
Ms McMahon, who has 29,000 followers on TikTok, is on a journey to break down any stigma about age gap relationships and regularly posts videos about it
The series followed pupils and staff at Thornhill Community Academy, a secondary school in Yorkshire, receiving rave reviews across the board and scoring fans across the world.
Mr Mitchell was loved by viewers as he was students. Two years after the show ended in 2015, he went on to take a role as headteacher at Co-op Academy in Leeds, where he stayed for a number of years.
He later became the headteacher of Netherwood Academy, in Barnsley, and is now deciding on his next venture in education.
Mr Mitchell has previously said he was ‘proud’ of his contributions in Educating Yorkshire.
He told Barnsley Chronicle in 2020: ‘The series is very much part of Thornhill and there’s a legacy there.
‘The whole franchise did a great deal for the teaching profession. It opened the public’s eyes to something they’d only experienced 25 or 30 years ago.’
