Teacher facing ban for touching schoolboys
‘He gradually built on a position of trust to introduce sexually motivated conversations and conduct’ Professional conduct panel report
A TEACHER faces being banned from the classroom after a disciplinary panel found that he had inappropriately touched male pupils and told a boy he “loved” him. He also called another boy “son” and allowed the boy to call him “dad”, the panel found.
Prean Naidoo, 50, who taught English at the Globe Academy in Elephant and Castle, was found to have sent “flirtatious” text messages after exchanging phone numbers with a “high-achieving” student, drunkenly telling him: “You know I love you. Do not leave me.”
He later invited the underage teenager to his flat in south London, where he rubbed his chest, traced his finger on his bare leg and offered to buy him a pint at a pub on a trip to the cinema.
The South African-born teacher was found to have sent the child messages on WhatsApp including references to the link between the size of a man’s feet and his penis and statements such as: “You are a big boy.”
The boy was one of five pupils or recent pupils to whom Mr Naidoo was found to have behaved “inappropriat ely ”, following a hearing of the National College for Teaching’s professional conduct panel this week.
The panel, which found Mr Naidoo guilty of unacceptable professional misconduct, heard he targeted “vulnerable” and “destitute” students and offered to buy one boy an iPhone for “good behaviour”. He also carried photographs of students in his wallet.
He invited a fifth student, whose parents were abroad, to his flat where he told him: “I get happy when you call me ‘dad’.”
In its report, the panel said Mr Naidoo was “breaking down the teacher-pupil relationship over the time the students were at the academy … particularly towards the end of the students’ last year.” It added: “The panel considers this was to continue their contact with the potential to develop a sexual relationship once the students had left.”
It says his behaviour “demonstrated a consistent pattern of conduct in that he sought to gain favour with and get close to potentially vulnerable pupils, and gradually built on that position of trust to cross professional boundaries and introduce sexually motivated conversations and conduct.”
Police were called in by the school, run by the Ark academy chain, after allegations of “inappropriate behaviour” made to the academy’s principal in 2012. But the CPS chose not to press charges, leading the school to launch an internal disciplinary investigation which led to his dismissal in November 2013.
Mr Naidoo, who lives in Pimlico, met former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott during a visit to the Globe Academy in 2009. David Cameron took US President Barack Obama to the school during a state visit in 2011.
The panel will now consider its options against Mr Naidoo, including banning him from teaching in the UK for life. Its decision will be published next month. Both Mr Naidoo and the Globe Academy declined to comment.