Teacher banned for sex offender relationship lies

A primary school assistant head has been banned from teaching for three years for lying about being in a relationship with a child sex offender.

Harriet Brown, 31, regularly visited and had "daily" phone calls with the unnamed man in prison while telling bosses at St Patrick's Catholic Primary School in Stockton she had ended their relationship, the Teaching Regulation Authority (TRA) said.

When challenged, she was "not open and honest" about her contact with the man over a three-year period, the TRA disciplinary panel said.

The Secretary of State for Education approved her suspension after the TRA said she had been "dishonest" and lacked integrity.

Brown began an on-off relationship with the man three years after she began working at St Patrick's in 2016, the TRA said.

Her partner was jailed in 2020 after being found guilty of sex offences against a child under the age of 13, with Brown telling the school she had ended their relationship, the panel said.

But visitor logs from HMP Northumberland showed Brown made "regular fortnightly" visits to the inmate between July 2020 and September 2023, the panel said, as well as receiving "daily" phone calls from him.

When challenged by someone investigating their relationship, Brown gave "vague" answers and was "not open and honest" about the contact, but admitted it when shown the prison logs, the TRA said.

In a letter to the panel, Brown, who also led the school's special needs provision and was a safeguarding leader, said she had broken up with the man and, as far as she was concerned, she had "no reciprocated feelings or any form of an intimate relationship" with the sex offender.

The panel said it was "satisfied" there was a relationship between the pair and she "failed to disclose" it to the school and, when asked directly about it, Brown was "failing to give truthful information".

"Ordinary decent people would regard a teacher denying ongoing contact with a convicted child sex offender while continuing to undertake regular prison visits and receive frequent telephone calls as dishonest," the TRA said.

Her conduct "demonstrated a lack of integrity", the panel said, adding it was "serious misconduct" which "could potentially damage the public's perception of a teacher".

The panel said Brown had been a "well-respected and trusted" teacher, with one colleague saying she had been "earmarked as somebody who had strong potential to be a school leader".

But her failure to disclose her ongoing relationship with a child sex offender was "not a momentary lapse of judgement" but rather a "sustained period of behaviour", the TRA added.

The TRA recommended she be suspended from teaching for two years, but Stuart Blomfield, the decision maker on behalf of the Secretary of State, said it should be for three years so Brown could "develop full insight and remorse".

She has been banned from teaching in any school in England until April 2029 and will have to apply to be allowed to teach again.

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