Head teacher banned for marrying a sex offender

A BIRMINGHAM head teacher who married a child sex offender could return to the classroom in two years the Department of Education has decided.

Lisa Johnson was headteacher of Holy Family Catholic Primary School, in Small Heath, when she began a relationship with a man who had a conviction for a child sex crime. The couple later married.

A teacher misconduct panel decided that her behaviour fell short of teacher standards and had brought the profession into disrepute.

However, the panel went on to advise the DoE that Ms Johnson should not be banned from teaching, saying it was a “one-off incident” and that she had “an unblemished career as a teacher for 20 years”.

The DoE disregarded this advice and banned Ms Johnson from the classroom indefinitely but gave her the option to apply to have the ban lifted in two years’ time.

Explaining its decision, the DoE said that Ms Johnson’s behaviour had damaged the public image of teachers.

“Ms Johnson, in her role as a headteacher, had a particular responsibility to lead on the culture regarding safeguarding in the school, and this was all the more pertinent when her own behaviours were at the heart of the concerns.”

It argued that her conduct had an “impact across the wider reputation of the teaching profession”.

Ms Johnson was suspended from her role as headteacher last September and resigned shortly afterwards, saying the school should not dictate “who she fell in love with”.

Parents of children at the school were not informed of the inappropriate relationship and the first they heard of the circumstances of her resignation was in a letter sent in September from the chairman of Governors, Mary Lynch.

She wrote that Miss Johnson “had potentially taken some decisions in her personal life that brought in to question her ability to safeguard our children” but stressed that pupils were never in danger.