Teacher is banned after footage of child on phone

A TEACHER who helped tackle a knifeman attacking a pupil has been banned from the classroom after recording footage of a child’s backside.

David Stus, a former teacher at Ridgewood High School, Stourbridge, was reported to police after footage emerged taken of the child as she was “bending over”, a Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel heard.

The 41-year-old was investigated by police, but officers decided to take no further action.

In 2011, Stus was named as one of the heroes who brought down a knifeman after a pupil was attacked at the school gates. Stalker Samuel Gayzer-Tomlinson was handed a 13-year jail sentence for trying to kill his schoolgirl ex-girlfriend in a frenzied knife attack.

Now Stus has been banned indefinitely from the classroom after the school referred him to the Teaching Regulation Agency once they were told about the 2018 footage.

Stus was alleged to have taken a video of Child A while she was bending over, then edited the video “which repeatedly showed the same image of Child A’s bottom”, a professional conduct panel of the Teaching Regulation Agency heard on December 16.

His conduct was alleged to have been of a “sexual nature or sexually motivated”, the panel was told.

Stus accepted that he was responsible for filming the initial footage which included Child A, but said it was taken accidentally and he “did not focus on her bottom”.

He accepted any footage filmed of Child A would have been without her knowledge and consent.

He denied editing any of the footage and denied any sexual element in his actions.

The panel considered the footage could not have been filmed accidentally and that the conduct of Stus amounted to “misconduct of a serious nature which fell significantly short of the standards expected of the profession”.