Convicted paedophile banned from teaching

Neil Moss was employed as a teacher at Topcliffe Primary School in Birmingham

A primary school teacher has been banned from the profession after being convicted of making and distributing indecent photos of children, as well as attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child.

Neil Moss, 42, was employed at Topcliffe Primary School in the Castle Vale area of Birmingham as a teacher in the school's unit for autistic pupils.

The academy has stressed that none of the images were of pupils at the school.

Moss was arrested on 29 May 2020 following an intelligence report and later sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for two years.

The Teaching Regulation Agency panel said it was concerned that Moss did not appear to address the impact on the victims in his case.

Despite acknowledging that Moss pleaded guilty and apologised to the school during his trial, the panel said it was not satisfied that Moss had demonstrated a high level of remorse or insight.

A total of 968 images were found on Moss's device, although a number of these were duplicates.

The charges related to the distribution of 59 images, 18 of which were from the most serious category of classification.

Moss did not attend the tribunal, which rejected the former teacher's application for the hearing to be conducted in private.

Suspended sentence

Moss had been employed at Topcliffe Academy since 1 September 2016 as a resource base autism teacher.

He was suspended from the school on the day of his arrest and resigned four weeks later on 25 June 2020.

Moss was convicted at Black Country Magistrates' Court in February 2021 of three counts of distributing an indecent or pseudo photograph of a child, three counts of making an indecent photograph or pseudo photograph of a child, and one count of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child.

He was sentenced at Wolverhampton Crown Court in July 2021 to two years in prison, suspended for two years.

He was also placed on the sex offenders' register for 10 years and is subject to a sexual harm prevention order for seven years.