Former Eastbourne teacher who had sexual relationship with ex-pupil can carry on teaching

John Tomsett was accused at a teachers’ disciplinary hearing in Coventry of failing to maintain professional boundaries by engaging in an inappropriate relationship with the girl in the summer that she received her A level results.

However, the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel cleared him of that allegation which was based on a number of specific allegations which they ruled had not been proved to the necessary level.

But they found that an allegation, which he had admitted, of engaging in a sexual relationship with the girl proved.

However, they recommended that Mr Tomsett, who went on to later become a head teacher at another school should not, as happens to many teachers who are subject to TRA disciplinary proceedings where the allegations are found proved, be banned from the country’s classrooms.

No details of the depth of the relationship between Mr Tomsett and the girl were given in the panel’s findings.

In their findings the panel say they consider his standards ‘fell short of the standards expected of the profession at the time, particularly the failure to maintain proper professional boundaries with Pupil A’.