A teacher locked a student in a cupboard, sent her sexually explicit messages and encouraged her to take drugs, a professional hearing has found.
The Teacher Regulation Agency hearing on August 10 found that Lee Nicholson, a former Physics teacher at Aston Academy in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a student between 2014 and 2018.
Proven allegations against Nicholson
Proven allegations against Nicholson include sending the student sexually explicit messages, confining her in a cupboard, embracing and kissing her, and securing a meeting room at the school where they could both be without anyone discovering them. The panel found that Nicholson, 39, also urged the student to take recreational drugs, spent excessive one-to-one time with her, and provided her with gifts and presents.
The panel heard that Nicholson and the student would meet at 7am before school started and on Saturday in 2016, when she was preparing for her exams.
Criminal conviction and school investigation
South Yorkshire Police arrested Nicholson in March 2023 on suspicion of inciting a girl under 16 to engage in sexual activity. During a search of his home, officers discovered drugs.
In April 2024, he was convicted and fined at Sheffield Magistrates' Court on four offences relating to the possession of various drugs, including cocaine. The school suspended Nicholson pending investigation when he was arrested, reports Yorkshire Live.
In January 2024, it launched an internal investigation into the allegations and Nicholson left employment on April 29, 2024.
Details of the misconduct
Nicholson provided the student with a desk in the cupboard where she was locked while he was teaching younger pupils. She told the hearing that "between lessons Mr Nicholson would come and visit her in there and they would lie together on the floor and cuddle in the far left corner of the room".
In messages, Nicholson instructed the student to use a penis-shaped lolly in a fridge "as a dildo" and encouraged her to masturbate. The student informed the hearing that Nicholson encouraged her to explore sexually and referred to masturbation as an "experiment".
She said he advised her to insert objects into her vagina and offered to provide her with some condoms for this purpose. He also urged her to take recreational drugs. The student told the police during their investigation: "When I was about 16 he spoke to me a lot about drugs, like different types of drugs and their effect in a very positive way, like I'm not very clued up on stuff like that anyway and he discussed them in a way with me that felt like he was encouraging me to take them."
The panel also discovered that Nicholson told her he would "drive his car off the road" and had a "suicide note" in his drawer if anyone discovered their relationship.
Panel decision and outcome
Decision maker Stuart Blomfield determined that there was "no doubt whatsoever that such actions were in fundamental breach of the professional boundaries between a teacher and a child and in particular breached the absolutely core requirements of safeguarding and acting in the child's best interests and pursuing a child-centred approach".
Nicholson was barred from the teaching profession indefinitely.
