Teachers have been speaking out about the “devastating” impact of malicious allegations made by students, including one case where a teacher lost an adopted child after being subject to a false accusation.

At the NASUWT’s annual conference in Birmingham, Neil Butler, the union’s main caseworker in Powys, Wales, said that even though he represented a small rural association he has had to “regularly deal with malicious allegations against our members”.

Those subject to such accusations felt “utter devastation”, “total shock” and “utter horror”, he said.

In one case he dealt with, a teacher was subject to an accusation of “inappropriate touching” by pupils at a time when the teacher was not actually at the school because he was away on adoption leave.

The accusation resulted in social workers removing the child placed with the teacher for adoption. The teacher was forced to tell his parents that they had lost their new grandchild, and his partner was forced to sign a statement that she would not allow him to have unsupervised care of their remaining child. 

The case was eventually dropped by the police, but the adopted child has not been returned. The teacher is now back at the school with his accusers.

Mr Butler told Tes the experience had been “absolutely devastating” for the teacher and his family. “The children that are never remembered are the children of the teacher,” he said.

During the debate on malicious allegations, Kevin Tiernan, a supply teacher from the south-east of England, said he had received four allegations in 12 months that left him feeling “dreadful”.

“I lost my livelihood, I couldn’t hold my grandchildren, I cried on my wife’s shoulder.

“I have had four safeguarding allegations in 12 months - a sexual assault, a physical assault, misuse of power and swinging a child I had never even met around a playground.

“I have a clear conscience... I know the first time it happened to me it was dreadful.”

According to new figures from the NASUWT, in 2017 out of the 119 members asked to attend a police interview because of a criminal allegation arising out of their employment, the police or Crown Prosecution Service found that in 83 cases there was ‘no case to answer’ or no further action required.

Of the remainder, no members were convicted at court, two members were acquitted at court and no members accepted a caution. The rest of the cases were ongoing.

Chris Keates,  the union’s general secretary said: “The NASUWT is clear that allegations made against a teacher must be taken seriously and investigated. However, our concerns continue about the failure of those in authority to distinguish false and malicious allegations at an early stage in the process and before the careers and family lives of accused teachers are destroyed.

“Even if the teacher is eventually exonerated, their career may be permanently blighted by the fact that the allegation remains on record. Some have also seen the breakdown of family relationships.”