A high school vice principal in the northern province of Vinh Phuc has rejected claims that he has confessed to having sex with one of his students.

News website VietnamNet reported Wednesday that the family of a schoolgirl has said Nguyen Van Huan of Ben Tre High School has admitted to having sex with their daughter.

Huan said his confession was coerced. He said young men in the girl’s house and the girl’s mother had earlier threatened to do harm to his daughter.

The case attracted media attention after the girl, only identified as Nguyen Phuc H., tried to commit suicide on November 20 saying she was distraught over repeated sexual harassement by Huan. 

A statement written by Huan at the girl’s house said that one day in October, he had asked the 11th grader out and driven her to a guesthouse at around 2 p.m.

“We went up to the room, I took off H.’s clothes and we had sex. I did that actively, I will take the whole responsibility,” it said.

The girl’s family said she swallowed sleeping pills on November 20, but failed to kill herself. Huan and another teacher from the school had come to visit and Huan had written the confession and signed it.

H. had told her family earlier that Huan forced her to go to a karaoke shop, forced her to drink, and sexually harassed her in the shop on the same day.

School principal Ngo Quang Thanh told the local media on Tuesday that Huan’s statement to the school had made different claims.

It said H. was rushed to hospital with cooking poisoning on November 20 and her family asked Huan to come to their house for some help.

But when he arrived, the family beat him and seized his cell phone, according to Huan’s statement to his school.

Thanh said he’d also heard rumors about Huan going to a karaoke parlor with the girl, but he didn’t know what really happened.

The principal said Huan is attending class as normal, and the school is conducting an investigation. Huan would be punished if found guilty, he said.

H.’s family has said the teacher had showed special interest in H. before the incident happened and had brought flowers and gifts to their house once.

Meanwhile, Huan said the girl had several times told him that she had romantic feelings for him, but had told her to forget it as he already has a family.

The day before she tried to commit suicide, the girl had sent a message to Huan saying that if he didn’t return her love, she would commit suicide, the teacher said.