A senior teacher at Afon Taf High School in Merthyr Tydfil has been suspended from the teaching register for 15 months after a professional standards hearing found he told a racist “joke” to the only black pupil in his class and made offensive comments about gay and additional needs people.
Meurig Jones, a teacher of 32 years, told the racist “joke” to a year 10 pupil during an art lesson in October 2022. The pupil, referred to only as Pupil Eight, said he felt belittled, singled out and upset, and later said he was shocked and then “angry he had not challenged Jones”.
Other comments found proved
The Education Workforce Council Wales Fitness to Practise Committee also found that Jones made offensive and derogatory comments about gay and additional needs people to pupils in other classes on dates in 2022 and 2024. Another pupil, who gave evidence in person during the four-day hearing, said he had been angered by comments Jones made about pupils in the school's learning resource base.
The panel found it proved that Jones told pupils: “The therapy dog does not want to spend his day with degenerates dribbling into their cornflakes,” or words to that effect. Other comments the teacher denied making but were found proved included telling a gay pupil “you do not look like one of them” and likening another pupil to an animal in another class in May 2024.
It was also found proved that at the same time as likening a pupil to an animal, Jones had sprayed water in their face during a class in May 2024, but not cleaning fluid, as alleged. During that class, in which students were using clay, the panel heard water spray bottles were used to keep the clay moist and the teacher had taken one away from the boy and then sprayed it in his face. The bottles contained water and not cleaning fluid, the panel found.
Panel rejects mitigation
Another allegation found proved was that some time between September and October 2022 Jones told a class: “If you don’t keep working it will be time to get the whips out,” or words to that effect. The committee heard evidence from Pupil One that he and another pupil used the expression between themselves concerning their girlfriends.
In an email to the school investigation in December 2022 Jones also referred to it as a continuing “joke” in the class, the panel heard. Panel chair Steve Powell said “there was no evidence pupils fabricated or co-ordinated their accounts” of what they reported the teacher said on all allegations.
Jones was not present and not represented at the hearing and therefore did not make any formal responses to the allegations in the hearing. However, during the school and EWC investigation before the hearing he denied the allegations, with the exception of limited admissions as regards the racist “joke” told in October 2022.
He also wrote a mitigation statement to the committee. In his responses he apologised for the racist “joke”. He said he had said it to Pupil Eight, with his permission, at the end of a GCSE art class, as an example of views held in the 1970s and 1980s to show how important the Black Lives Matter movement was. The committee did not view this as mitigation.
Mr Powell said: “The words were racist. The context advanced by Mr Jones (that it was to show views from prevous times) did not alter that. It was not proper for a teacher to tell a joke that relied on racial stereotype. The committee found the joke derogatory and reduced black people to racial sterotypes in a belittling way. Mr Jones said he did not mean to upset the pupil but this did not alter that. It caused the pupil to feel targeted, singled out and belittled.”
Suspension and return
On the comment made about children in the school's learning resource base the chair described this as an “extraordinary departure” for Mr Jones as a trained ALN teacher and former head of the learming resource base.
Jones, who had worked at Afon Taf High since 1993 with a previously unblemished record, was suspended from his job at the school in May 2024 during an investigation into the raft of allegations and resigned in January 2025. He had been head of the school's art department, and before that led the school's learning resource base and taught other subjects including English.
Pupils giving evidence of his racist and discriminatory comments had described them as out of character. The panel also heard Jones had no support from a teaching assistant with his classes. The committee noted that, when he sought support, the assistance offered was “limited”.
In a personal statement written by Jones and read out in the hearing the teacher said he had always “given my heart and soul to everything I taught”. He said he had trained for four years in ALN teaching and the allegations were from a period where he had lost a good colleague and friend.
Finding a majority of the allegations proved and that they amounted to unacceptable professional conduct, the committee suspended Jones from the EWC teaching register to teach for 15 months. The chair said this was sufficient time for the teacher to reflect and to return to the profession again in 2028 should he wish.
The committee said the use by a teacher of a racist “joke” directed to a black pupil in a classroom “was a serious departure from the standards of respectful, inclusive and professional conduct expected of a registered person”. It added that the fact the conduct was racist was of particular significance, although it had made no finding of racist motive.
Jones has the right to apply to rejoin the EWC teaching register after 15 months. He also has the right of appeal to the High Court within 28 days.
