Teacher WON’T be banned after kissing pupil, 17
A TEACHER who kissed and danced in a flirtatious manner with a pupil at a nightclub has been allowed to return to teaching.
But Ashley McConnell was reprimanded by the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) yesterday after it found that her fitness to teach was impaired.
The physics teacher was the focus of an investigation into her behaviour with a teenager at Skinandi’s nightclub in Thurso, Caithness, in March 2018.
The married 34-year-old was found to have kissed a Thurso High School pupil, 17, at the nightclub and danced with him in a flirtatious manner.
She also told other pupils at the same club to ‘f*** off’ after they questioned her behaviour.
Miss McConnell, who was 30 at the time, admitted to the GTCS panel last month that she drank an excessive amount of alcohol on the night in question and could not remember everything. After seven days of evidence over the course of two months, the GTCS decided that Miss McConnell would be allowed back in the classroom and issued her with a nine-month reprimand.
She had been out for dinner and drinks for a colleague’s 50th birthday and had visited several pubs before she went to the nightclub with French teacher Emilie Charton.
Miss Charton, who recently left Thurso High School, said: ‘I do not believe that she was in full control of her actions and I do not remember her making any advances.’
Miss McConnell, also known as Ashley Swanson, said: ‘I realised that my conduct had fallen short, I don’t drink alcohol any more – perhaps if I hadn’t been drinking alcohol that night I wouldn’t be in the situation we are in.’
Issuing its findings, the panel said it was ‘persuaded that the teacher’s behaviour had been neither predatory nor premeditated in intent’ and that there was ‘genuine regret and remorse’.
The GTCS also found that there was not enough evidence that Miss McConnell had touched the teenage pupil inappropriately.