The High Court has confirmed a two-year suspension from the teaching register for an anonymised teacher after a Teaching Council disciplinary panel found that he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship and inappropriate communications with a student.
The teacher, identified only as MN, must also comply with conditions for ten years after the suspension ends. During that period, he must inform any prospective employer of the outcome of the disciplinary proceedings and provide a copy of the panel's report and sanction decision, with witness names and certain locations redacted. His registration will also record that conditions relating to his fitness to teach have been imposed.
The Teaching Council's disciplinary panel found beyond reasonable doubt that MN had engaged in the inappropriate relationship and communications in or around 2020 while the student was in his care. It found professional misconduct and breaches of the Code of Professional Conduct for Teachers.
The panel considered the conduct to be at the most serious end of the spectrum, noting the teacher's position of trust and the student's vulnerability at the time. It also found a pattern of deliberate behaviour rather than an isolated incident.
Mitigating factors included MN's previously unblemished teaching career, positive character evidence, his age of 57 and the impact that removal from the register would have on his ability to support his family. By the time of the sanction hearing, he had married the former student, although the High Court was later told that relationship had ended.
MN did not apply to annul the disciplinary decision and told the court that he accepted the sanction.
Mr Justice David Barniville said he had misgivings about the apparent leniency of the sanction but found no legal basis to refuse confirmation. The court's role was not to substitute its own view but to decide whether the sanction was one no reasonable professional disciplinary body could impose.
The court confirmed the two-year suspension and ten-year conditions. It also authorised the Teaching Council to notify the relevant teaching regulators in Northern Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland.