Sex education teacher Benedict Garrett, who stripped under the alias Johnny Anglais, and befriended students on Facebook, told he may continue teaching
A sex education teacher who also worked as a stripper under the stage name Johnny Anglais has been found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct but permitted to continue teaching.
Benedict Garrett, 31, who was head of personal, social and health education at Beal high school in Ilford, Essex, was given a reprimand after a two-day disciplinary hearing of the General Teaching Council on Wednesday. The disciplinary committee heard that Garrett had been stripping in clubs while he was employed at the school.
The school investigated Garrett after pupils discovered a trailer for a pornographic film in which he featured.
Garrett admitted that following a school trip to Spain in February 2009, he used a pseudonym to set up a Facebook account to which students at the school were accepted as friends. The teacher regularly communicated with year 10 students about matters unrelated to school using text messages, emails and Facebook. The school's communication policy states that teachers must never befriend a student on a personal social networking site.
The disciplinary committee accepted Garrett's explanation that the Facebook account was set up in order to collect photos of a school trip to Spain, but said this did not excuse the subsequent use of Facebook to communicate with students.
Garrett argued that "a significant portion" of the public did not find his behaviour immoral or regard it as incompatible with teaching. He questioned why other behaviours which led to harm – including smoking, drinking or overeating – were tolerated by the teaching profession and said that his involvement in the porn industry was not harmful.
Derek Johns, chairman of the panel, sitting in Birmingham, told him: "The committee is content that you have sufficient insight and would not repeat this behaviour should you resume teaching.
"You have stated that you will continue to advocate the morality and acceptability of your involvement in the adult industry and argue that it should not be inappropriate for a teacher to work as a stripper or in pornographic films.
"However, the committee is content that you recognise the widely held public view that such work is not acceptable conduct for a teacher. Therefore, in relation to risk of repetition, the committee considers it is unlikely that you will seek to return to the teaching profession whilst working as a stripper or in pornographic films."
Garrett was employed at the school in Essex from 1 January 2008 to 16 July 2010, when he was suspended.
Terese Wilmot, an associate headteacher at the school, who investigated the allegations against Garrett, informed the disciplinary committee that the school had a moral and social responsibility to the local community, whose views on the question of pornography had to be respected.
Wilmot stated that the school was "very pleased" with the standard of Garrett's teaching practice when he joined. However, there were concerns about his "over-familiar" classroom manner.
At a teaching union conference this Easter teachers were warned not to accept friendship requests from pupils on Facebook amid concerns over the blurring of boundaries between school staff's professional and private lives.
In a fringe meeting at the National Union of Teachers' annual conference in Harrogate, teachers were told that pupils are getting access to potentially embarrassing information about teachers on their Facebook pages, while headteachers and school governors are increasingly using information posted on social networking sites to screen candidates for jobs.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/aug/31/school-teacher-stripper-facebook-pornographic
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