Teacher who kissed a pupil while sitting on his knee dodges ban

A PRIVATE school teacher sacked after she was pictured sitting on a sixth-former’s knee and kissing him has escaped a teaching ban.

Rachel Clint, 33, stunned the 18-yearold with the drunken ‘spontaneous’ kiss on a train, a disciplinary panel heard.

Classmates captured the scene on mobile phones as they travelled back from a leavers’ party – at which there had been a free bar for staff. After the picture was shown to colleagues, the geography teacher was sacked from £11,169-a-year Merchant Taylors’ Boys’ School in Crosby, Merseyside.

But she has now been cleared to resume her career after the panel concluded it had been a one- off misjudgment rather than sexually motivated. Miss Clint told the panel there was a free bar for staff at the event in May 2017 and she had been drinking on an empty stomach. The teenager, referred to as Pupil A, said as everyone travelled back to school by train, Miss Clint sat on his knee and ‘within a very short space of time kissing took place’. The boy had not ‘anticipated, expected or sought to bring about’ the intimacy, a Teaching Regulation Agency panel in Coventry was told.

Miss Clint failed to inform her superiors but was suspended the following September when the photograph came to light. Police were informed but took no action. However, she was sacked in April last year.

In evidence, she said: ‘There was a brief kiss which was spontaneous and was a surprise to me. I just wanted to move on and I am truly remorseful that I did not report the kiss.’

The panel was told she had been suffering from unspecified ‘problems in her personal life’. Panel chairman John Matharu said: ‘A kiss between a teacher and a student on a

‘No further intimacy’

busy train, in close proximity to other students, who proceeded to film the incident, in the panel’s view, would have a negative impact on Miss Rachel Clint’s status as a teacher.’ The judgment stated: ‘It was not suggested that Miss Rachel Clint’s actions were sexually motivated, given that the evidence “suggests that this was a spontaneous kiss which did not lead to any further intimacy”.’

Miss Clint, who had been a teacher for ten years and had an unblemished record, was found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct but spared a prohibition order – meaning she can still teach.

Former pupils at the Crosby school include former Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie. Beverley Bell, chairman of governors at Merchant Taylors’ Schools, said: ‘The judgment ... allows Rachel Clint to continue her teaching career, but this will not be at Merchant Taylors’ Schools.’