A pupil who used a mobile phone to take “upskirting” videos of two teachers at his school while they were teaching has been found guilty of five counts of outraging public decency.
The pupil was aged 14 and 15 at the time he captured the covert footage at Enniskillen Royal Grammar School, in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, in 2015 and 2016.
Now aged 18, he was convicted at Enniskillen Youth Court this morning and will be sentenced on 12 March.
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The charges relate to five separate incidents involving two teachers on two different dates.
Following today’s hearing, Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, of which the two teachers are members, said the verdict sent a clear message that teachers do not have to put up with sexual harassment or abuse in the workplace.
She added: “Our members have had to endure not only the violation of knowing that a pupil took intimate images of them while they were teaching, but also several years of anxious delay before this case could be brought to court.
“It was only due to the persistence of the NASUWT and the strength and resolve of the members that it did so at all.
“We very much welcome today’s verdict which will hopefully provide the teachers with a sense of closure and allow them to move on from these distressing events. It also sends out a clear message to pupils that engaging in such degrading behaviour is completely unacceptable.”
The NASUWT is now calling for upskirting to be made a criminal offence in Northern Ireland as it is in England and Scotland.
The defendant cannot be named for legal reasons.
As reported in Tes, there have been concerns about the rise in upskirting of teachers by pupils since at least 2016 following a separate case in which a 23-year-old D&T teacher used the Tes community forums to reveal how male students had used their mobiles to take upskirt photos while she was leaning over in class in front of 20 boys.
Four boys were temporarily excluded with phone bans over the incident after a teaching assistant noticed them acting suspiciously. However, the teacher said she had felt “violated” and “threatened” and was “resigned to the fact that my a*** is likely to be all over Snapchat”.
