Mark Ainsworth represents teacher who escapes classroom ban

July 28, 2017

Mark Ainsworth from Exchange Chambers has represented a teacher who escaped a classroom ban after being found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct by the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL).

The NCTL found that the teacher, who admitted sending emails to a female pupil, guilty of unacceptable professional conduct which could bring the teaching profession into disrepute but recommended he should not be banned from the country’s classrooms.

The NCTL said it viewed what happened as  “being indicative of his naivety and lack of awareness of the reality of the situation.”

They said the teacher, who taught in the school’s English department from September 2015 to April 2016, admitted sending emails to the girl, some of them late at night. The allegation had been the messages were “flirtatious” or “sexually aggressive” but the teacher had not admitted that and the panel found only he had sent the girl emails.   They also accepted his denials that what he did was not sexually motivated, that he had failed to take action when he became aware that the girl “had developed feelings” towards him and that he had told her to delete messages between them.

Accepting the panel’s findings and agreeing, on behalf of Education Secretary Justine Greening, not to impose a ban, NCTL Deputy Director Alan Meyrick said that while the teacher’s conduct had fallen “significantly short of the standards expected of the profession” he considered a published finding that he was guilty of unacceptable professional conduct would be sufficient punishment.

Mark Ainsworth was instructed by Richard Nelson LLP in Nottingham.

Mark is a member of the criminal department at Exchange Chambers.