Teacher had a four-year affair with ex-pupil

A TEACHER who had a four-year sexual relationship with a former pupil has been struck off.

The geography teacher, who is engaged, also sent naked photos of himself to the 17year-old girl, along with dozens of inappropriate messages via text and social media.

The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) heard that he began contacting her on Facebook after she returned from a sixth-year trip abroad in 2012.

The pair also discussed dancing with each other at a prom and he replied: ‘If only I wasn’t a teacher.’

They first had sex in his car in an industrial estate months after she had left school and the relationship carried on for four years.

The GTCS heard that the girl’s friends tried to stop the illicit affair because of the effect it had on her and the clear breach of trust.

She went to university to study to become a teacher but became withdrawn and began drinking excessively and was told to keep the affair secret.

The girl’s mother told the hearing that the teacher, identified only as Teacher C, had taught her daughter for four years.

She said she was shocked when one of the girl’s friends told her of the relationship.

When she questioned her daughter, she saw notifications from the teacher on her mobile phone and on Skype and had a ‘light bulb’ moment as to what had been going on between the pair.

Police advised the family that no criminal act had taken place because the girl was over 16 when the relationship started. The teacher had also left her school nine months before they began speaking on Facebook.

The teacher, who was granted full anonymity, told the GTCS he did not feel the relationship was inappropriate and said he had deleted messages and photos he had sent to the girl to stop his fiancée and children finding them.

He said he believed the sex was between two consenting adults but admitted he had not read rules regarding contact with former pupils and wished to apologise for the impact it had had on her.

He also said he believed teaching was his ‘vocation’ and expressed a desire to return to the classroom.

However, he was struck off by the GTCS panel, which said that his version of events was ‘not wholly reliable or credible’.

In a written ruling, panel members said: ‘The panel considered the seriousness of the misconduct and whether it was remediable. It considered that the conduct was very serious.

‘The teacher had acted deliberately. The conduct was sustained and planned.

‘The short timeframe between Witness A leaving school and the relationship commencing was very important.

‘The messages from July 2012 moved rapidly to being flirtatious and then to a sexual relationship within a few months.

‘The panel considered that there had been a significant breach of trust on the teacher’s part.

‘He had been her teacher for four years, although not during her last year of school. There was a serious breach of trust with a sexual element. The onus was on him, as an experienced teacher, to avoid such situations.’

Last year, music teacher Elizabeth Smillie from Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire, was banned from the classroom after being found naked in bed with a teenage pupil.

The GTCS ruled that the 39year-old formed ‘inappropriate relationships’ with two vulnerable female pupils, both of whom had lost parents.

One, who was aged 15, said Miss Smillie had asked if she ‘fancied Meryl Streep’.