Girl’s X-rated ‘fantasy diary’ led to top teacher losing job

AN award-winning teacher was sacked by his school after a “besotted” pupil wrote a “fantasy” diary claiming he had groped her, a tribunal has heard.

Alex Cufflin broke down when he was cleared of misconduct by a teaching panel following allegations by a 17-year-old pupil.

The panel heard the “troubled young woman” was besotted with the maths teacher and wrote X-rated diary entries which mixed fact with fantasy.

She claimed that between 2003 and 2007 Cufflin kissed her in class, slid his hands down her underwear and took a CD containing modelling shots of the pupil.

She alleged that Mr Cufflin – who won The Guardian Secondary Teacher of the Year award in 2008 – kissed her in a back office with the lights off and squeezed her bottom.

The girl also claimed he had groped her while she was dressed as a police officer in thigh-high stockings.

In 2015 he was suspended by Rawlins Academy and then dismissed, but a Teaching Misconduct Panel yesterday heard that the diary entries were “inconsistent” and that “fantasy and reality” could be not be reliably separated.

Sitting in Coventry, the panel said Mr Cufflin was found guilty of kissing the pupil but that she initiated it and he “could not prevent” it.

And he was found guilty of hugging the pupil but said this was after she was found crying following the death of a relative. The panel added that Mr Cufflin should have known better than to hug the pupil, given that he knew she had a crush on him, and said he should have reported it to seniors.

Kathy Thomson, who chaired the panel, said Mr Cufflin had crossed professional boundaries, but that no action would be taken against him.

Ms Thomson said the diary’s claims that he removed the pupil’s bra and touched her breasts, could not be relied upon as “the witness admitted writing some of the diary entries while under the influence of alcohol”.

She told how the “inconsistent” entries meant that “fantasy and reality” could be not be reliably separated.

The case went to trial at Leicester Crown Court in April 2016 and Mr Cufflin was cleared of offences against a pupil.

He now runs a furnishings shop in Loughborough.