A teacher has been barred from the classroom for at least four years, after a series of incidents, including turning up to school smelling of alcohol, threatening to smash car windows in and being arrested twice. 

Barry Wilson, a teacher at Dyke House Academy in Hartlepool, admitted "unacceptable professional conduct."

The teaching misconduct panel heard that problems with Mr Wilson's conduct began in January 2021 when he failed to attend all of his online lessons, and the next day, arrived in school looking “dishevelled, unkempt and smelling of alcohol” which other staff reported to school leadership.

Mr Wilson told the panel that he was undergoing a "particularly testing and very difficult period in his life". 

Threatening behaviour

Though the teacher was only issued with a final written warning for the incident with alcohol he was later arrested twice in connection with threatening behaviour.

An individual, only referred to by the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) as ‘Person A’, phoned the police in June 2021, claiming that Mr Wilson said he would “smash your windows in” if they did not open the car doors.

By the time the police arrived, Mr Wilson was described as “calm but intoxicated”, though he had been “irate” during the verbal attack. He was arrested, but no charges were pressed.

He did not tell the school that he had been arrested in this incident, or when he was arrested again for kicking in the same person’s front door three and a half months later, in October 2021.

He had visited Person A's home and was seen on CCTV swinging his leg back and forth, leaving a hole in their front door, which Person A saw when they returned to their property.

"Dishonest" 

The TRA panel concluded that as Mr Wilson knew he should have disclosed his arrests to Dyke House Academy, so his actions were "dishonest by the standard of ordinary decent people."

The panel was of the view that Mr Wilson had “acted deliberately to conceal his arrests.”

But they were also "mindful" that Mr Wilson's earlier incidents with alcohol were "isolated", rather than a repeating pattern, and found no proof that he had been drinking on the job. They therefore concluded that "in this context, this allegation was sufficiently serious so as to amount to unacceptable professional conduct."

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Four-year minimum teaching ban

The panel recommended that a prohibition order should be imposed with "immediate effect", which could prevent Mr Wilson from returning to teaching for the rest of his life. 

However, the TRA also believed that, though his misconduct was serious, "it was not so serious so as not to ever be remediable."

After 5 July 2028, Mr Wilson can apply for the teaching prohibition order to be set aside, they said, but this does not mean that the order will definitely be removed.