A secondary school teacher who had a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old female Leaving Cert student has been removed from the teaching register for 30 years.
At a fitness-to-teach sanction hearing held remotely on Friday, the panel said the teacher’s conduct was of such a serious nature he had brought the profession of teaching into disrepute.
At a previous hearing on September 3rd, the panel found the man had engaged in professional misconduct and breached the Code of Conduct for Teachers.
The inquiry arose from a complaint made by the woman, Student A, to the Teaching Council. Student A said that while she was an 18-year-old student, a teacher at her school had sexual encounters with her on four to six occasions between March and June, 2018.
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She also alleged she and the teacher sent communications to each other on Snapchat, the social media app. Many of these communications were of a sexually explicit nature, she alleged, including photos of a penis and nude photos of the complainant.
The inquiry also involved allegations from another female Leaving Cert student in the school – Student B. She alleged the teacher sent her messages via social media that were sexual in nature, while he also inappropriately touched and kissed her at a licensed premises in May, 2018.
The teacher, who has been registered since 2016, taught in the school for five years. The inquiry heard in July he was then working at another school.
At the hearing on September 3rd, however, the inquiry heard the teacher accepted that his teaching career was probably over.
Panel chairperson Clodagh O’Hara said the two Leaving Cert students were at school in the lead-up to their exams when they were contacted by the teacher on social media. The tone of the communications were sexualised and became increasingly lewd.
For Student A, this quickly escalated to a sexual relationship which also involved alcohol. To her credit, Ms O’Hara said, the student later reported the teacher’s behaviour to the Teaching Council, which also involved her going to great trouble to retrieve social media records and giving evidence.
Student B was also contacted on social media by the teacher, who slapped her and kissed her at a school social event, she alleged. When she blocked him, he confronted her in school and frightened her, causing her to unblock him, Ms O’Hara said.
The chair also said that the close friendship between student A and Student B was affected by the teacher’s behaviour.
Ms O’Hara described the teacher’s behaviour as “predatory and manipulative”. She said the students were particularly vulnerable and the teacher had abused their trust.
Protection of the public was a primary concern of the panel in its choice of sanction. Ms O’Hara referred to the “pattern of abusive and predatory behaviour” of the teacher, saying that the risk of this behaviour being repeated could not be discounted. She added that such actions undermine public confidence in the teaching profession.
The panel found that the level of mitigation on the part of the teacher was “very limited”, in that he had not been previously the subject of a complaint before the Teaching Council.
At the hearing on September 3rd, the teacher’s solicitor, Eoin McGlinchey, requested that his client’s relatively young age and inexperience at the time in question be taken into account. The panel did not find this persuasive.
Ms O’Hara said this may be a valid consideration if the case only involved a single error of judgment and there was evidence of insight along with no great harm being caused. None of these characteristics were present, she said.
Ms O’Hara said insight was not exhibited by the teacher at any point. There was a “striking denial” of the complaint, which persisted throughout the inquiry.
The panel chose to remove the man from the teaching register for 30 years, as they found his conduct was fundamentally incompatible with continued registration.
