By Lucy Caulkett-
A headteacher has been cleared of unacceptable professional misconduct with a former pupil, after being found not guilty by a panel. The teaching misconduct panel ruled that he may have brought the teaching profession into disrepute.
John Tomsett was acquitted after appearing in front of a Teacher Regulation Agency panel this week to face allegations said to have taken place between 1990 and 1992. The 54 year old was employed as an A level English teacher at Eastbourne Sixth Form College at the time.
He faced one allegation of failing to maintain professional boundaries by engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a pupil, known only as ‘Pupil A’, and one allegation of engaging in a sexual relationship with the same pupil during the summer in which she received her A-level results.
Giving evidence at the hearing in Coventry, the girl said: “He pulled me towards him and I was thought it was like a line from a play or a novel. It was like my English literature classes were coming to life. Mr Tomsett was very intense; he had a wonderful way with words and was quite beguiling.
”In my diary at the time, I said he was not abusing his position only his wedding vows.”After Mr Tomsett left the college, the woman told the panel Mr Tomsett, who is currently headteacher of Huntington School in York, picked her up in his car on a number of occasions to go for walks at local beauty spots where “consensual oral sex and masturbation” took place.
She said: “He told me he wanted to make love to me and he told me that a colleague at work said he would leave the door on the latch for him so he ‘could make love to me all day’ – I felt uncomfortable when I thought that another colleague knew about us.”
Although Tomsett admitted having a sexual relationship with the pupil, the panel found that it was “not proven” that Tomsett failed to maintain professional boundaries by conducting an inappropriate relationship with the pupil. The ruling seems a joke in the face of the evidence, but that’s how it can go sometimes.
Instead of a straightforward finding of guilt for the involvement of a relationship with his former pupil, his actions were simply judged “unwise, ill-judged and unprofessional”. Tomsett, who admitted engaging in a sexual relationship with the pupil after they both left the school, insisting this was not unacceptable professional conduct.
In other words, he must believe his conduct was acceptable. Starting a relationship with a former pupil after school does not make it acceptable otherwise teachers might as well begin to store telephone numbers of the hottest girls so they can spark something later. It should be a no go area between teacher and former pupil, an exception can probably be made if they met over a decade later.
Although he was found not guilty of unacceptable professional conduct, Tomsett’s actions did fall short of teaching standards of 1992, and if known at the time would have brought the profession into disrepute, the panel ruled. Therefore, his actions amount to conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute.
The panel’s decision on whether or not to ban Tomsett from teaching will be announced in around two weeks.