A secondary school teacher who said a pupil looked like they had “fingered a smurf”, and who spoke about how teenage boys “finger-blast” teenage girls has escaped being banned from the profession.

Adam Evans, who used to teach physics at Fazakerley High School in Liverpool, also said to a pupil eating a chocolate bar “you look like you’re deep throating it”, and suggested a pupil sniff a seat because “sweaty gooches” had been on it.

Mr Evans was dismissed from the school for gross misconduct following a pupil complaint in February 2018 about inappropriate comments he had made during a lesson.

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Appearing before a professional conduct panel of the Teaching Regulation Agency, Mr Evans admitted making a number of inappropriate comments of a sexual nature to pupils:

• According to a pupil witness statement, when a pen popped on another student’s hand, covering it in blue ink, Mr Evans said: “it looks like you’ve fingered a smurf”.
• He described a pupil’s textile work as “troll pubes”.
• When a pupil was eating a chocolate bar in class, Mr Evans told him to spit it out. When he did so, Mr Evans said: “at least we know he spits and not swallows”, and told the student “you look like you’re deep throating it”.
• A pupil said that Mr Evans “started talking about finger-blasting girls and said that it was not right for a 15-year-old to finger-blast a 14-year-old”.
• When a pupil mentioned that a seat was warm, Mr Evans suggested they “sniff the seat because sweaty gooches have been on it”.
• He made “beeping noises while holding a pedometer near a pupil, to suggest it was indicating that he was a paedophile”. The pupil witness said: “When I had a pedometer on my watch, Mr Evans wanted a look at it…I had pronounced the word incorrectly (as a paedo-meter)…Someone in the lesson said that a pedometer counted steps and explained the difference between paedometer and pedometer….Mr Evans began beeping the pedometer in front of Pupil D. Pupil D said, “Sir, are you calling me a paedo?”

Mr Evans accepted all the alleged comments had been said by him and that each was inappropriate and of a sexual nature, although he said there was no sexual intent behind their use.

His recollection was that they had been made in one lesson at the end of January or the beginning of February 2018.

The panel said that Mr Evans’ behaviour “amounted to misconduct of a serious nature” and that they were “without excuse and unacceptable”.

However, it said there was a “strong public interest consideration” in retaining him in the profession, referring to a number of positive references attesting to his qualities as a teacher.

During the hearing, Mr Evans referred to the fact that he had been promoted after being qualified as a teacher for only one year, and that he found his new position “rewarding” but “stressful”.

He also said that his long-term partner had become ill shortly before he made the comments, and that he was allowed to take a week’s compassionate leave to look after her.

He said that, upon reflection, he believed he was suffering from ill health at the time.

“Mr Evans accepted that he used humour as a teaching tool but, for this lesson, due to the stresses he was under, he had severely misjudged what was appropriate,” the decision notice states.

The panel judged that “the conduct complained of was limited to a single lesson and was a misjudgement, albeit a significant one, by Mr Evans following a lengthy period of pressure being placed on him both in a professional and personal capacity”.

In light of this, it recommending against issuing him with a prohibition order - a recommendation that was accepted by the education secretary’s decision-maker, Alan Meyrick.