A primary school teacher who asked girls in his class on dates and touched a child's bottom has been banned from teaching for life. Carl Dixon, 62, worked at Davies Lane Primary School near Stratford, east London, where he sent secret notes to pupils and pressured a child to hug him, a Teaching Regulation Agency panel heard.
The panel found that Dixon had asked a pupil, referred to as Pupil 9, on a date and had touched her bottom. He also pressured the same pupil to hug him. The misconduct occurred between November 2017 and January 2020. Dixon resigned in January 2020 and was later sacked in February 2021.
Dixon had denied the allegations but was found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct. The panel noted that he had misled his employer in 2018 by answering 'no' to a question about whether he had ever been known to children's services or police as a risk to children.
The panel concluded that there was a real risk of repetition and that the serious nature of the behaviour, including sexual misconduct, warranted a lifetime ban with no review period.
