The Teaching Council has called for a teacher to be removed from the Register of Teachers after an inquiry found him guilty of professional misconduct over inappropriate relationships with two Leaving Certificate students at the school where he taught.<\/p>\n
Counsel for the Teaching Council said the \u201cextremely serious\u201d findings against the teacher were incompatible with him remaining as a registered teacher.<\/p>\n
A fitness-to-teach inquiry heard evidence in July that the teacher had sex with a then 18-year-old female student \u2013 known only as Miss A \u2013 on her mother\u2019s bed and in his car and apartment after sharing explicit photos with her on Snapchat.<\/p>\n
It also heard that the teacher had engaged in \u201cpredatory\u201d behaviour with her best friend \u2013 a student identified as Miss B \u2013 when he kissed and touched her in a pub on their 6th Year graduation night.<\/p>\n
At a hearing on Wednesday, an inquiry panel found a series of eight allegations of professional misconduct against the teacher proven which related to inappropriate behaviour with the two students at various times during the 2017\/18 school year.<\/p>\n
They included that he sent messages, photos and memes of an inappropriate and sexual nature to both students after adding their names to Snapchat.<\/p>\n
Miss A gave evidence that she was \u201cna\u00efve and vulnerable\u201d when she recalled that the teacher had sent her \u201cd**k pics\u201d and she had sent him nude photos in return.<\/p>\n
The inquiry, which arose following a formal complaint by Miss A, heard that he had also encouraged her to drink alcohol because it would make her \u201chorny\u201d. She also gave evidence that the teacher \u2013 who is now in his 30s \u2013 told her it would be \u201chot\u201d if they had sex while she was in her school uniform.<\/p>\n
Two of the eight allegations related to the teacher\u2019s inappropriate behaviour with Miss B who told the inquiry that he had slapped her bum several times on her graduation night as she was walking up a stairway.<\/p>\n
She gave evidence that they later kissed in a dark corner and he subsequently sent her a message which said: \u201cYou should have come back to mine.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a submission on sanction, counsel for the Teaching Council, Neasa Bird BL, said the facts in relation to all the allegations against the teacher had been proven beyond reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n
The barrister said the findings constitute professional misconduct as his actions were disgraceful and dishonourable and brought the teaching profession into disrepute as well as breaching the Code of Professional Conduct for Teachers.<\/p>\n
The three-person inquiry panel made a provisional ruling that the teacher\u2019s identity cannot be published but its chairperson, Clodagh O\u2019Hara, said the issue may be revisited. The teacher did not attend the inquiry but was legally represented at its hearings.<\/p>\n
In correspondence, he had questioned the credibility of Ms A\u2019s account and noted she had sent a letter to Miss B which stated that \u201cnothing sexual occurred\u201d. Ms Bird said the teacher\u2019s actions represented various inappropriate behaviours including communications that were increasingly of a sexualised nature with a student who was preparing for her Leaving Certificate exams.<\/p>\n
She noted he had also engaged in inappropriate contact with another female student, including sending her explicit communications.<\/p>\n
Ms Bird said the inquiry panel should have regard for aggravating factors in the case, including the teacher\u2019s abuse of his position and the breach of the teacher\/student relationship, in deciding on the appropriate sanction.<\/p>\n
She observed that Miss A had much less experience in \u201cthe ways of the world\u201d than the teacher and was \u201cpotentially vulnerable\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The inappropriate sexual relationship that he had with the student was even more abusive and damaging, said Ms Bird.<\/p>\n
The panel were reminded that the teacher had also encouraged her to drink alcohol.<\/p>\n
Ms Bird said his inappropriate conduct with Miss B was also fundamentally at odds with the role of a teacher and could never be justified.<\/p>\n
She claimed removing his name from the Register of Teachers was the only sanction that could maintain confidence in the profession.<\/p>\n
Ms Bird said there was a pattern to the teacher\u2019s behaviour which meant the case could not be treated as an isolated matter and which suggested he had \u201charmful, deep-seated attitudinal problems.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The panel were reminded that the teacher had contributed to the stress and anxiety as well as the sense of guilt felt by Ms A over what had happened.<\/p>\n
Ms Bird said there had been no evidence of any insight on the part of the teacher and he had made no apology or expression of remorse.<\/p>\n
The teacher\u2019s solicitor, Eoin McGlinchey, urged the panel to have regard for the fact that it was his client\u2019s first permanent teaching role and he was \u201cvery close in age\u201d to his students.<\/p>\n
While the teacher had not made any admissions of fact, Mr McGlinchey argued he had done so \u201cin a practical sense\u201d by not challenging the evidence of witnesses through cross-examination.<\/p>\n
He said the teacher accepted the panel\u2019s findings \u201cwithout reservation\u201d and also that it was likely that his teaching career was finished.<\/p>\n
The panel\u2019s ruling on sanction will be announced on September 12. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Teaching Council has called for a teacher to be removed from the Register of Teachers after an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,1201,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,1202,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-42381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-court-and-crime","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-politics-and-analysis","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}