A teacher with a previously unblemished career has been found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct after using a school laptop to access pornographic websites in his classroom.
John Davies, who was head of the learning support unit at Bridlington school and sports college, was given a conditional registration order by the GTC. Any school that employs him in future must monitor his internet use for six months and send a report to the GTC registrar.
Mr Davies was formally dismissed from the east Yorkshire comprehensive last year. He had worked there since 1998 and is now working in a supermarket.
He told the disciplinary hearing in Birmingham last week he wanted to be allowed to teach again and that his life had become unbearable since looking at the sites out of curiosity.
Alison Beard, his NASUWT union representative, said no pupils had ever been present when he looked at the sites and that the content never related to children.
The disciplinary panel heard that Mr Davies had visited several erotic websites in September 2003 on his laptop while in his classroom during school time.
The school launched an internal investigation after a virus alert from Mr Davies’ computer was received by the ICT manager. Richard Bird, the acting head, then conducted an investigation.
He said: “I found a number of websites had been visited which depicted images of adult women without clothing and in embarrassing positions.”
Mr Davies was suspended from the school during the investigation and dismissed in February 2004.
