Manchester teacher, 49, banned from classroom for not stopping pupil sending explicit messages

Rebecca Whitehurst, 49, formerly of Wellacre Academy, Urmston, accepted that she was guilty of unacceptable professional conduct at a hearing of the Teacher Regulation Agency (TRA), and is prohibited from teaching indefinitely.

What happened?

Ms Whitehurst was employed as a teacher of modern and foreign languages at Wellacre Academy from September 1 2016 until November 18, 2019. During her employment at the school, she undertook all required annual safeguarding training.

On September 17, 2019, Ms Whitehurst notified the school that she had been communicating with Pupil A via their personal mobile phones and over social media. She explained that she had obtained his phone number on a school trip in a previous year and she disclosed that he had sent her inappropriate/indecent images of himself.

She said she had met him a couple of times outside school and then confirmed this had happened on eight occasions. On three consecutive days in August 2019, Ms Whitehurst and Pupil A had exchanged a number of messages on social media, including messages in which he expressed suicidal thoughts. She did not report those messages to the school or any external safeguarding authority.

Findings

The TRA panel was satisfied that Ms Whitehurst did not target Pupil A for attention at the outset, and that her breach of professional boundaries started from a desire to help him. However, they said that Ms Whitehurst was aware that Pupil A had particular vulnerabilities before exchanging personal contact details and entering into a relationship with him that breached professional boundaries.

They remarked that the conduct took place over “a considerable period of time” - between March and September 2019 - and was not an isolated incident. A report states: “The panel considered that over this period there were lots of opportunities for Ms Whitehurst to step away from the situation and seek appropriate help. Even accepting Ms Whitehurst’s account that she did not request indecent images from Pupil A and that she deleted them immediately after she received them, she did not report receiving them or take any effective action to prevent Pupil A from continuing to send them to her.”

It continues: “Ms Whitehurst was fully trained in safeguarding and would have been very well aware of the risks of not following statutory and local procedures. Despite this, she failed to follow those procedures. This resulted in significant risk of harm to Pupil A, and to Ms Whitehurst and others around her. This harm materialised in that Pupil A exhibited signs of distress as a result of the events flowing from her breach of professional boundaries.”

1,000 pages of messages

In total, almost 1,000 pages of messages were exchanged between Ms Whitehurst and Pupil A over a few days in August 2019. The report states that the language and tone of these messages “was suggestive of a deeply personal relationship between them which was wholly inappropriate between a teacher and a [REDACTED]-year-old pupil. For these reasons, the panel was satisfied that the conduct of Ms Whitehurst amounted to misconduct of a serious nature which fell significantly short of the standards expected of the profession.”

The panel said Ms Whitehurst had previously had a good history and there were no previous issues of this sort, but they said she was not acting under extreme duress, and chose not to follow safeguarding framework. The panel also noted they had no evidence of any work done by Ms Whitehurst since the events of 2019 to understand and address the risks of her actions.

The report continued: “The panel noted that her current lack of full insight and evidence of full remediation meant that Ms Whitehurst would pose a risk of harm if allowed to return to teaching now. But with work on her part, she could develop that insight and be able to demonstrate that she had remediated the concerns.”

Decision

Decision maker Sarah Buxcey said she needed to uphold public confidence in teachers, and as such, determined that Rebecca Whitehurst is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England.

She may apply for the prohibition order to be set aside, but not until 02 October 2030, 5 years from the date of this order at the earliest.

Manchester World has not been able to reach Wellacre Academy for a comment due to half term.