Teacher struck off register for fraud

23rd January 2009, 12:00am

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Teacher struck off register for fraud

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/teacher-struck-register-fraud

A primary teacher in Angus, convicted three-and-a-half years ago of a Pounds 56,000 family fraud, has been struck off the register by the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

Moira Ewart and her husband Alexander, who lived in the village of Monikie, were jailed for 18 months in 2005 for a fraud involving Mr Ewart’s aunt between November 1998 and November 1999.

Mrs Ewart had power of attorney over the affairs of Jean Ewart. She and her husband were convicted of inducing Angus Council’s social work department to pay for Miss Ewart’s care at a nursing home when she was not entitled to it; of passing cheques from Miss Ewart’s accounts for goods and services from which she did not benefit; and of selling shares after she had died and the power of attorney had ended.

This week, the GTCS’s disciplinary sub-committee ordered that Mrs Ewart’s name should be removed from the register.

Mr Ewart had asked for his wife’s hearing to be adjourned to allow a criminal appeal to be lodged with the Court of Criminal Appeal, and to allow her medical records to be made available.

However, the committee heard that the Court of Criminal Appeal had already refused an appeal on behalf of Mrs Ewart in June 2008.

Mrs Ewart did not attend the hearing, but the committee said it had reached “the unanimous view that such a premeditated breach of trust rendered the respondent unfit to meet the standard expected of a registered teacher.

“The scale of the fraudulent scheme devised and perpetrated by the respondent displayed conduct which was severely at odds with that expected of a member of the teaching profession.”

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