To think that teachers convicted of downloading child pornography should not be allowed to teach?

I read this morning that this man has decided not to return to teaching. When I was involved in joint police/social work investigation/interviews with offences against children, it was local force policy never to caution sex offenders. The reasoning behind this was that there should be risk assessment and intervention with such offenders. Despite the policy, many cautions did take place, presumably as others have said to keep the clear up rate high. I don't understand how the school reached the conclusion it was appropriate for him to return to teaching. Lilygran, spot on, if the caution had been before he trained, he simply wouldn't have been accepted on a course.

Weirdest thing about this story is that if he had received a caution for downloading child pornography before applying to train as a teacher, he wouldn't have been accepted. And if he applied for a new teaching job with his record, he would fail the check system.

Totally agree....just ban him.

Michael Gove has been challenged and a statement has been put out to the effect that, in future, this will not be happening again. I agree with Nelliemoser - just ban him.

The fact that he teaches religious education, also beggars belief.

As far as I'm concerned there is no such thing as a scale of 1 to 10 or any other number,for child porn.

How about a tattoo on his forehead stating 'I only pose a minor risk to children' ?

This defies all common sense really! Just ban him.

He is not just a member of the public who has downloaded images!

He is someone who has been working with children.

Apart from the nasty interests in looking at these images in the first place, he surely should, as a teacher have been very aware of the potential damage to his career by just trying to access any stuff remotely like this on his computer. It sounds distinctly dodgy to me!

However
Even if he has not actually been banned I cannot see any schools willing to employ him.

Any parents willing to allow him to teach their children.

Or that he would ever survive the abuse and ridicule he would get from the schools pupils.
At least I hope not!

Ok my mistake - blame it on bad editing - should read 'every teacher'. Thank you for mentioning my error...

What? All such convictions...? I hope not...

I see its been announced that no teacher will be banned from teaching in a school after all such convictions.

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No what your doing is fine!

Saw this on news....evidently he has shown empathy and remorse....strewth! someone needs a lesson in how paedophiles work - being devious is part of their bag of tricks.

I'm with you on this greatnan.

I am outraged that any image of a child in a provocative pose can be viewed as 'not serious'. So many offenders try to say it is a victimless crime, they are not hurting the children, etc. Rubbish.
There are many instances of judges handing out very soft sentences to paedophiles - it does not surprise me when I look at the backgrounds of the majority of them.

Thought at first that maybe he'd just been browsing and accidentally looked at something, but it says he downloaded 200 images.

I understand that the giving of cautions is a matter for the Chief Constable of the area. The West Midlands tops the list. But I suppose it means that the Police can manage their statistics on cleared up crime and it looks good for them.

Yes, I too was shocked and puzzled when I heard this on the news - actually wondered if i'd heard it right! There are no mitigating circumstances in respect of child porn - these pictures might be graded in order of 'severity', but IMHO anything that relates children with porn is wrong. I wonder how the parents at that school will now react?

The Sentencing Guidelines say that this offence is not suitable for a Caution, so why the hell has he been allowed to avoid court?

I have not heard about this case, but in principle I am clear that downloading such images should result in automatic dismissal from any post that involves contact with children.

If there was no demand for it, i.e. if nobody downloaded it (if only) it would not exist, so the downloading is fundamental to its existence. It is rarely if ever innocent and so-called "innocent" viewers must realise and be made to realise they are contributing to this nauseating form of child abuse. It's not the sort of thing you do by accident.
Only once ever, as a Samaritan, did I meet someone who claimed his downloading was entirely innocent for the purpose of a dissertation for his training as a social worker. When he told me, it was because he realised, possibly too late, that the act itself had the potential to be the end of his future career.

Perhaps Michael Gove would like to place him in a school in his constituency, if he's ok about him continuing to work? He can stake his job as an MP, if he's so confdent. i bet he wouldn't get re-elcted, nor would the local parents let this man through the school gates. Personally, I would strongly object, knowing that he would be sexually fantasisng about the next child he is attracted to.

bluebell I do so agree with you. I once had a conversation with a solicitor who was defending someone who had downloaded child pornography. (I was working in a different department of the same practice) He was saying he was only looking at the pictures not actually abusing a child. I had to forcefully point out to the solicitor that in order for the pictures to be there to be viewed a child had to be abused.

He taught at a Catholic High School - which would include a lot more than hairy teenagers!! His photos were level 1 ( the scale is 1-5) Level one means the children are nude and the poses erotic but there is no sexual activity. Of course, that's in the actual photos themselves - god only knows what went on whilst the children were being posed and before and after. I think that's actually what really really bugs me - the act of viewing photos in which of course children were being abused whilst they were created. How could you not care that by viewing these images you were contributing to child abuse - how could you then be allowed in a classroom? It's wrong that its left upto individual schools ( although I agree he probably won't be employable) as it sends a very odd message.