The publication of a book about good teaching practice by headteacher John Tomsett was “a trigger” which led to the police being informed about his relationship with a former pupil more than 20 years earlier, a teacher conduct panel has heard.

Mr Tomsett’s book, called This Much I Know About Love Over Fear, published in 2015, has a picture of him hugging a pupil on the front cover.

The book is an account of Mr Tomsett’s experience of headship.

The conduct panel, sitting at the Teaching Regulation Agency, in Coventry, was told by his former A-level English pupil that seeing the book made her feel “angry”.

Although Mr Tomsett admits engaging in a sexual relationship with the pupil, then aged 18, during the summer in which she received her A-level results, he denies that this amounted to professional misconduct or that it brought the teaching profession into disrepute.

The panel has heard that Mr Tomsett, a married man, would pick her up in his car and they would go for walks at local beauty spots. In a letter she wrote to herself at the time, she described it as “a summer of wonderful romance and passion”.

On one occasion, she said there was “consensual oral sex and masturbation” and on another occasion he lay on top of her “rubbing up and down and simulating intercourse”.

Continuing her evidence, the woman, now in her 40s and a single mother, said the relationship had affected her adult life, resulting in “continuous flashbacks” about the relationship in her 30s.

During counselling sessions following the death of her father and problems in her marriage, she had mentioned the relationship with Mr Tomsett to her counsellor without saying his name. 

Headteacher ‘not fit to give evidence’

However, she later named him to the counsellor after the publication of the book.

She told the panel: “I felt angry because there was a picture of him hugging a pupil. It was trigger. And I remember getting upset.”

She added: “The counsellor breached my confidentiality. I don’t know if she went to the police or whether she went to the LADO [local authority designated officer] in East Sussex.”

She said: “It was very hard to handle going into a police station to give a statement. All of a sudden I had gone from being in counselling to being in a police station and I felt horrible. They told me there was no crime of grooming back then but said if it had happened more recently it would have been different, and it was likely he could have been arrested.”

Mr Tomsett, who has taken leave from his role as head of Huntington School, near York, has been sitting behind a screen today and yesterday while his former pupil has given evidence about their relationship.

She said she and Mr Tomsett had continued contact when she was at university, including on one occasion when she said he phoned her and asked her to have sex but she refused.

Lay panellist Karen McArthur, questioning the woman, said: “There is a point at which you are an adult and can make a decision and say, ‘I don’t want to do these things any more.’”

The woman replied: “The way he was made me feel there was a future and a hope.”

The woman later trained as teacher, but said she could no longer work in education, partly because Mr Tomsett’s name was often mentioned and he was “quite significant” in education circles.

Later, while training in a different job, she was on a course about child sexual exploitation and said she had a panic attack.

She said. “I felt ‘Is that me?’ and I remember asking quite cautiously that even if someone’s over 16 and this happened, ‘Is this OK?’ and they said, ‘No, this is not OK and it would have to be reported,’ and it was really shocking. I was so conflicted.”

Mr Tomsett denies another allegation of failing to maintain professional boundaries by engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a pupil.

He had been due to give evidence this afternoon about his version of the relationship. However, his barrister, Andrew Faux, obtained an adjournment on the basis that he was “not fit” to give evidence because he was exhausted.

Mr Faux said: “This has placed enormous strain on him for a considerable amount of time.

“During lunch I intended to discuss in some detail with him how he had understood and reflected upon evidence from Ppupil A and it became apparent to me that from a combination of tiredness and sheer emotional exhaustion that he was effectively unable to engage in the process. He was not fit.”

The woman cannot be named for legal reasons. The hearing continues.