Biddy Passmore and Joe Clancy report on the educational fall-out from the revelations following the not guilty verdict on sexual assault charges against a temporary biology teacher.
A teacher supply agency has this week become embroiled in a row over employing a teaching support assistant who was subsequently convicted in a major trial.
Select Education placed Steven Gray, a 29-year-old assistant, with a Bradford school while he was awaiting trial for a robbery for which he was later jailed for seven years.
The case came to light as a jury found Canadian biology teacher Amy Gehring not guilty of three charges of indecently assaulting two brothers.
Ms Gehring, 26, was found not guilty of a fourth charge at the direction of a judge at Guildford Crown Court.
TimePlan, the teacher supply agency that recruited Ms Gehring, admitted an “appalling mistake” in allowing her to carry on working after police had warned that she posed a risk to children.
Rob Stonier, its Surrey director, has been dismissed and Chris King, the agency’s director of education (who was never told of the warning), has offered his resignation.
TimePlan is now facing a Department of Trade and Industry inquiry and possible legal action by the parents of the teenage brothers for putting their children at risk.
If found guilty of failing to follow proper procedures, it could face a 10-year ban and fines of up to pound;5,000.
The latest case involves Bradford Cathedral community college. Select insists it informed the school of the pending prosecution for robbery, and advised that Steven Gray should be withdrawn from lessons.
But the school denies receiving that advice and is now reviewing its association with Select, in conjuction with the school’s governors and Education Bradford.
Gray was jailed two weeks ago at Newcastle Crown Court after he was found guilty of robbing a 94-year-old great-grandmother.
The court was told that Gray, a graduate, had posed as a priest to gain entry to the woman’s home. He grabbed her wallet containing pound;30 and pushed her over, leaving her badly bruised.
David Kershaw, who became Bradford Cathedral college’s head in January, says the first he knew of the case was when Gray asked him for time off “to go to court for a relatively minor matter involving mistaken identity”.
He added: “If Select Education had advised us to withdraw we would, as a matter of school policy, have terminated his employment immediately.”
He said all his senior staff deny being given any information about Gray by Select staff “though I don’t know what conversations it may have had with the previous head”.
Select Education says it first registered Gray at its Newcastle branch last February. Following a clean criminal convictions check, he was placed in various schools in the region.
He moved to Leeds in September and was placed at the Bradford school, but Select then carried out a second police check, which revealed the pending prosecution.
The spokesman added: “It is not our policy to have staff on our register who have a criminal charge pending. We presented the full facts arising from the second criminal convictions check to the school.
“This has been a unique incident, with circumstances that have not occurred during the previous eight years of operation as a supply teacher agency.”
Leader, 24
