A teacher who was convicted by a court of sex offences against a child should still be allowed to teach, a professional conduct panel has said.
But the panel’s decision has been overturned by the education secretary’s decision maker, who said that “sexual activity with a child who is also a pupil is a fundamental breach of the teaching profession’s standards”, and imposed a four-year ban.
Andrew Colville, who was working as a teacher at the £10,000-a-term Royal Masonic School for Girls, in Hertfordshire, was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for kissing a pupil under the age of 16. The sentence was subsequently suspended for 18 months.
Mr Colville’s name has also been added to the sex offenders’ register for seven years.
But a professional conduct panel did not accept that Mr Colville’s actions merited a teaching ban.
In its report, it stated that Mr Colville’s conviction was for “a single kiss on one occasion”.
It added: “The panel accepts the teacher’s evidence that his actions were not deliberate. The panel accepts that the teacher was acting under emotional duress at the moment that he kissed a pupil at the school.
“The teacher did have a previously good history, and the panel accepts that the incident was out of character.”
The panel noted that the offence occurred in 2005, and that Mr Colville has had no similar incident since then. It therefore concluded that Mr Colville should not be banned from teaching.
However, this ruling was overturned by the education secretary, and a prohibition order placed on Mr Colville for a minimum of four years.
In his decision on behalf of the secretary of state, Alan Meyrick said: “I am particularly concerned in relation to the damage to the reputation of the profession by allowing a person who has been found guilty of sexual activity with a child, and who has received a suspended prison sentence of six months for that conviction, to be allowed to teach.”
Mr Meyrick added that a prohibition order was necessary “in order to maintain public confidence in the profession”.
