Thirteen teachers from across Greater Manchester were banned from teaching in the last 12 months after being found guilty of misconduct that brought their profession into disrepute. The offences included drunkenly attacking police officers during a day at the races, lying about a classroom accident and having sex with pupils.
Among those struck off were paedophile Rebecca Joynes, who was jailed after having sex with two pupils, including one she had a baby with, and disgraced former headteacher Christopher Pickup, who continues to maintain his innocence despite being jailed for a decade-long campaign of sexual abuse against pupils. All received orders banning them from teaching anywhere indefinitely.
Rebecca Joynes and Anthony Hook
In December, shamed Rebecca Joynes was struck off the teaching register. The 31-year-old maths teacher was jailed for six-and-a-half years after being found guilty of a string of sexual offences against pupils. The 'sexual predator' groomed one 15-year-old boy with a trip to the Trafford Centre, buying him a £345 Gucci belt from Selfridges. She then fell pregnant by another teenage pupil, who she also began a sexual relationship with when he was 15.
Joynes was found guilty of six counts of sexual activity with a child, including two counts of sexual activity with a child while in a position of trust, following a trial at Manchester Crown Court. The offences concerned two teenage boys she met through her job as a teacher at a Greater Manchester school. The boys - and the school - cannot be identified for legal reasons. Joynes was struck off after she was found guilty of unacceptable conduct and bringing the profession into disrepute. A Teaching Regulation Agency panel banned her from teaching indefinitely. Shirley Duckworth, representing the TRA, told the panel Joynes' convictions were 'of the utmost severity' and the offences were a 'breach of trust'.
Maths teacher Anthony Hook was cleared by a jury of sexually assaulting eight girls at a school, but was banned from teaching after a disciplinary panel found him guilty of 'unacceptable professional conduct'. After a two-week trial in 2023, the 66-year-old, who has served in the Army, was cleared of more than two dozen sexual offences against female pupils at the Greater Manchester school where he worked for almost 20 years.
Earlier this week it emerged that Mr Hook, from Urmston, who was sacked by the school, has been banned from the profession. It came after he admitted at a disciplinary tribunal to a string of allegations about interactions which made pupils feel uncomfortable, including playing with or praising their hair and singing 'I love you' to one. The Manchester Metropolitan University graduate denied allegations he was sexually motivated during the encounters, a claim which a professional conduct panel of the Teaching Regulation Agency accepted following a two-day hearing. But the panel ruled he should be barred from teaching, particularly as, in 2015, he had been handed a written warning by his school 'not to touch students and staff' following complaints - which he admitted - that he had been touching pupils of both sexes on their arms and shoulders. The conduct panel concluded he had 'failed to learn' from the warning.
Thomas Wilson and Kathryn Matthews
RE teacher Thomas Wilson was struck off after sending creepy 'sexually motivated' messages to two former pupils while they were still under 18. In one WhatsApp exchange, Mr Wilson asked one former student 'What would you do if you were here!? Xxx', followed by 'I was thinking a really great morning f***!!'. In a separate message, the 38-year-old also sent her a 'sexually suggestive' picture of his naked torso. Mr Wilson, who was working at St Paul's Catholic High School and St Thomas More RC College in Denton, Tameside, at the time, was barred from teaching indefinitely after he was found guilty of serious misconduct. The TRA panel said Mr Wilson had 'exploited his position as a trusted former teacher'.
English teacher Kathryn Matthews was struck off after she allegedly engaged in an inappropriate and sexual conversation about orgasms and sex toys with pupils at a high school in Wigan. Ms Matthews, who had been working at The Westleigh School for two months, was suspended following the incident, which came to light following a conversation between pupils and was later investigated. In October she was banned from teaching after a TRA panel ruled she had conversations with the pupils about the topics, constituting misconduct 'of a serious nature'. It came after one pupil claimed Ms Matthews had told the class a story about a boy and a sex toy. Pupils were also said to have asked her about other sex toys and 'orgasms', which she responded to. Ms Matthews didn't take part in the disciplinary proceedings but was presumed to have denied the claims. Following the investigation, the panel found she had engaged in conversations with pupils 'discussing subjects including anal sex, gay sex, a story about a boy who was injured when using a sex toy, the use of dildos and female and male orgasms and g spots and masturbation in an English lesson'.
Daniel Whitley and Reece Denton
Daniel Whitley's fledgling career was left in tatters after he was caught lying to parents and forging a colleague's signature as he tried to cover up a classroom accident. The rookie primary school teacher bumped a Year 1 child's head with a chair during a lesson at Beaver Road Primary School in Didsbury. But when, at parents evening a few days later, the pupil's parents asked why they hadn't received an accident slip, Mr Whitley, 25, lied and said the injury had been caused in the playground. The following day he then 'backdated' a falsified accident report saying the child 'banged head on climbing frame, small mark, ice pack given' and forged a colleague's signature on it. In fact, a TRA tribunal heard, Mr Whitley later admitted the injury was caused when he 'accidentally hooked his foot on a chair which had caused a chair to hit [the pupil] on the back of the head'. Mr Whitley, who started work at the school just six months earlier, admitted all the accusations against him, the tribunal heard, and apologised for his actions. The TRA panel ruled he was guilty of serious misconduct and banned him from teaching indefinitely.
Maths tutor Reece Denton was banned from teaching after forming an 'inappropriate relationship' with a pupil. The 29-year-old used WhatsApp and FaceTime to contact the 'vulnerable' teenager outside lessons and once suggested he use his blazer to cover a CCTV camera while they were alone in a room during an unscheduled visit, a disciplinary hearing was told. He 'regularly' messaged the teenager on WhatsApp while he was her maths tutor working for an agency, Altrincham-based Learn Northwest Education. He resigned from the agency and Beamont Collegiate Academy in Warrington, where he worked as a maths supply teacher, in December 2023. His contact with the pupil was 'unacceptable professional conduct' and his behaviour 'amounted to misconduct of a serious nature which fell significantly short of the standards expected of the profession', the TRA panel said as they prohibited him from teaching indefinitely.
Declan Sealy and Richard Lees
Declan Sealy threw away a 20-year teaching career when he turned violent on a staff day out at Chester races. After downing 10 pints, Mr Sealy, 45, bit a bouncer and attacked two police officers who had used CS spray to bring him under control, a TRA panel heard. Sealy had previously had an 'unblemished' 20-year career as a teacher, latterly at Dixons Brooklands Academy in the Baguley area of Wythenshawe. He was handed a 26-week suspended prison sentence at Chester Magistrates' Court in February 2024 after he was convicted of being drunk and disorderly, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and assaulting an emergency worker. Sealy 'admitted the alleged facts' when he later appeared before a TRA panel and said he felt 'embarrassed and ashamed' of his convictions. The panel originally decided that a ban on teaching was 'not appropriate in this case'. But the final decision-maker, Stuart Blomfield, ruled a prohibition order was justified.
Disgraced PE teacher Richard Lees, who was jailed after taking sick upskirting pictures of pupils and keeping indecent images of kids on a school laptop, was banned from the profession in January. Lees, previously of Stockport, was arrested in July 2022 whilst working as a PE teacher at a school in Greater Manchester, by police investigating an unrelated matter. Lees, then 43 and of Heald Green, was sentenced to two years in prison at Chester Crown Court in February last year. The judge told him that 'it is hard to imagine in your profession and your role a more serious breach of trust in relation to those young girls.' Following a subsequent disciplinary tribunal, the TRA panel said Lees' crimes represented 'gross breaches of trust' and that he 'lacked insight or remorse in relation to his offending behaviour'.
Samuel Caron and Christopher Pickup
Primary school teacher Samuel Caron was struck off after he sent sexually explicit messages to four former colleagues. Mr Caron sent one female colleague a picture of his penis then tried to claim it was a 'pocket dial', a tribunal heard. Other inappropriate messages were sent by mistake or when he was drunk, the 34-year-old said. But a TRA panel rejected those explanations as 'not credible', saying Mr Caron had demonstrated a 'repeated pattern of sexual behaviour towards female colleagues'. Between October 2022 and May 2023, Mr Caron, a teacher at St Patrick's RC primary in Collyhurst, north Manchester, sent inappropriate messages to four women he used to work with at a previous school, the panel heard. After the allegations came to light, he was suspended in August 2023 and sacked in January the following year after a disciplinary hearing. Mr Caron said he 'profoundly regretted' his actions. In an email to the TRA he wrote: "If I could change these events, I would in a heartbeat. I am sorry to those I have affected." He was found guilty of serious misconduct and banned from teaching indefinitely.
Paedophile headteacher Christopher Pickup was jailed for a decade-long campaign of sexual abuse against pupils, but 'continues to maintain his innocence', a TRA panel heard. The 79-year-old was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2022 after being found guilty of 37 counts of sexual assault against 19 boys. Minshull Street Crown Court heard Pickup, of Underwood Way, Shaw, who taught at two Oldham primary schools in the 1970s and 1980s, engaged in the 'systematic and calculated' sexual abuse of children. Over a 12-year period, he sexually assaulted boys between the ages of eight and 11 in classrooms, in his office and on school trips, the court heard. Three years on from Pickup's conviction, the TRA banned him from the profession. At a hearing in December, a tribunal panel was told Pickup, who was not present and not represented, 'continued to maintain his innocence'.
Mark Rowley, Matthew Hindle and Rebecca Whitehurst
High school teacher Mark Rowley was banned from the profession after being accused of telling a pupil over TikTok about his dreams of 'kissing her all over her body, cuddling with no clothes on and having sex with her'. Mr Rowley, who worked at Hazel Wood High School in Bury, was suspended in 2022 after the allegations first emerged. It came amid allegations that he had exchanged text messages, emails and a TikTok video of himself with a pupil. In the video, which Mr Rowley, 56, admitted to tagging the pupil in, he was seen licking his lips and pouting while the song 'Laid' by James played. In a police interview, Mr Rowley admitted to finding the pupil attractive and that some of his messages to her were flirty, but denied that they were sexual. He later told the TRA: "Once she started flirting, I got sucked into flirting back." In November last year, the TRA ruled Mr Rowley was guilty of serious misconduct and ruled he should be prohibited from teaching indefinitely.
Former music teacher Matthew Hindle 'engaged in sexual activity with a former pupil' while working at Tottington High School in Bury. The 36-year-old started the 'inappropriate' relationship in 2017 and in the years that followed was accused of asking the 'vulnerable' pupil to remove her clothes on a video call, inviting her to his home and engaging in sexual acts with her when she was still under 18 years old. The allegations - most of which were denied - were all found to be 'proven' by a TRA panel. Mr Hindle's conduct was investigated by Oulder Hill Leadership Academy in Rochdale after his new employer received an allegation from a member of the public in 2020. He resigned in 2022 shortly before a referral was made to the TRA, who in October last year ruled he should be banned from teaching indefinitely.
Rebecca Whitehurst, a former languages teacher at Wellacre Academy in Urmston, was banned from returning to the profession after she exchanged thousands of messages with a 15-year-old pupil and met up with him on several occasions. It was also revealed that the teenager had sent the teacher an explicit image of himself as well as a message containing pornography. Ms Whitehurst was cleared of all charges of sexual relations with a pupil in July 2022 after a jury at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court found her teenage accuser had faked incriminating WhatsApp messages and lied about sexual encounters. But three years later, the 49-year-old was banned from teaching over the same incident. A TRA panel ruled in September that while innocent and initially well-intentioned, the parts of the relationship between Mrs Whitehurst and the pupil that were agreed to be true amounted to serious professional misconduct. The panel found that the mum-of-two, from Lymm, Cheshire, had shared her personal phone number with the pupil, exchanged messages, met the pupil outside of school, received gifts from the pupil, received an explicit image of the pupil and on one occasion received pornographic images from him.
