Primary head is banned for hiding drink-driving
SHE IS NOT ALLOWED TO TEACH AGAIN FOR AT LEAST TWO YEARS
A FORMER primary school head has been banned from teaching after trying to hide a string of drinkdriving arrests from her employer.
The case against Sally Stafford, 46, formerly the head of Dalestorth Primary School in Sutton-in-ashfield, was set out at a professional conduct panel in November.
On May 9, 2019, Ms Stafford was arrested for drink-driving and was convicted on March 12, 2020.
On August 30, 2019, she was again arrested for drink-driving and received a six-month driving ban and a £969 fine, and was ordered to pay £300 costs.
The teacher was aarrested yet again on December 11, 2019, for drink-driving and driving while disqualified, resulting in an eight-week sentence suspended for 12 months, and a probation order which included an alcohol treatment order.
In a written statement to the professional conduct panel, she admitted she had not told a 2020 appeal hearing about the offences.
That appeal hearing reinstated Ms Stafford, who had been head since 2014, after she was dismissed in November 2019 due to staff raising concerns about her drinking.
A witness said Ms Stafford had been drinking in her office before the school’s Easter disco, before joining the disco, drinking two glasses of wine and then driving home.
Ms Stafford told the professional conduct panel that on one occasion in May 2019 she had consumed alcohol before attending school, but denied being drunk.
She also admitted she drove home despite management instructions not to due to concerns over excessive drinking, and also that she had, on one occasion, claimed to be visiting another school when in fact she had been at home drinking.
She denied lying about a course she was due to attend being cancelled, and also denied an allegation that she had failed to attend an organised school trip because she had been drinking.
Ms Stafford accepted that the offences amounted to unacceptable professional conduct and, where applicable, convictions of relevant offences.
The panel said it was satisfied that Ms Stafford had shown significant insight and remorse, with her witness statement saying: “Self blame, guilt, embarrassment, shame are all present in me.”
They concluded her conduct amounted to misconduct of a serious nature which fell “significantly short of the standards expected of the profession”, describing her actions as not a one-off lapse of judgment but repeated incidents.
The panel also considered Ms Stafford’s repeated and escalating driving offences demonstrated a “wilful disregard for the law that was compounded by her decision to conceal this information from the school”.
As a result, the panel decided to make a prohibition order, banning her indefinitely from teaching in any school, sixth-form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England for two years.
She will then be able to apply for the ban to be removed, but without a successful application she will not be allowed to teach again.