Teacher (20s) who sent Snapchat messages ‘of a highly sexual nature’ to teenage girls struck off

A teacher in his early 20s who sent inappropriate messages via Snapchat to teenage girls who were his former pupils has been struck off by the Teaching Council.

The regulatory body for teachers also ruled that the teacher should not be eligible to apply to re-register for a minimum of 15 years as the seriousness of the findings against him were “fundamentally incompatible with his continued registration as a teacher”.

An inquiry by the Teaching Council in July found the teacher guilty of seven allegations of professional misconduct as well as breaches of the Code of Professional Conduct for Teachers.

It ruled that the teacher had engaged in inappropriate contact on Snapchat with six former students at the secondary school where he taught as well as with another girl from the same area.

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Some of the text messages contained material of a “highly sexual nature”.

The messages were sent on unknown dates between September 2019 and July 2020 when the girls were aged between 13 and 14.

The name of the teacher, the students, the school and its general geographical location cannot be identified by direction of the Teaching Council.

The inquiry heard evidence over two days this summer that the teacher had worked as a student teacher and subsequently as a substitute teacher at the school between September and December 2019.

At a sanction hearing on Thursday, the council’s disciplinary committee said the professional misconduct by the teacher was “at or very close to the highest end on the spectrum” in terms of seriousness.

The committee’s chairperson, Seán O’Neill, said matters taken into consideration were the abusive nature of his conduct and the age profile of the students who were at a stage of development where children tended to be especially vulnerable.

Mr O’Neill said the teacher’s actions could not be deemed “a once-off incident or brief momentary lapse”.

He said each inappropriate contact involved “a significant degree of careful preparation designed to make his manipulative approaches appear innocent and friendly and were clearly with a view to pursuing further inappropriate contact”.

Mr O’Neill noted that many of the contacts had been “flirtatious and sexualised,” with the teacher sending a part-topless photo of himself to one student, while he had described another girl as a “little ride”.

Another student was urged to keep the contact secret so that the teacher would not get into trouble or be arrested, which Mr O’Neill said was “clearly manipulative”. One of the girl’s mothers branded the teacher as “a predator” during her evidence to the committee.

Giving evidence, the teacher said he was “not a risk to people” and his offending actions had taken place when he was “going through a terrible period” in his life while he was a young student teacher.

“My regret over these actions continues to haunt me to this day,” he said.

While he understood the Teaching Council had a duty to maintain confidence in the teaching profession, he claimed it could be achieved through his rehabilitation rather than his removal as a teacher.

The teacher said there had been no further incidents in relation to his behaviour over the intervening period. He said he had suffered greatly over the past three years and had already been out of work for a long time.