Teacher hacked woman's phone to find intimate clip

Brendon Fallows went into his colleague's phone and tried to send an intimate video of her to himself

A primary school maths teacher who hacked into a colleague's phone and found an intimate video of her before trying to send it to himself on WhatsApp has been banned from teaching.

Brendon Fallows, 37, took the phone out of the woman's coat pocket and guessed her password so he could look through her photos and videos, a Teaching Regulation Agency panel was told.

The teacher, who had been working at Lady Bay Primary School in Nottinghamshire for 10 years, admitted the allegations, confessing he "allowed curiosity to be overtaken by adrenaline".

The panel concluded Mr Fallows's behaviour amounted to unacceptable professional conduct, and made a recommendation to the secretary of state that he be barred from teaching with a review period of two years.

The virtual misconduct meeting heard Mr Fallows started working at Lady Bay Primary School in 2013 as a class teacher and maths lead

In October 2023, Mr Fallows and the female teacher, who was not named by the panel, were sitting in the school's office before she went to teach a class at 14:15, leaving her phone in her coat pocket on the back of a chair.

When she next looked at the phone at 17:15, she noticed a WhatsApp message had been sent to a number she did not recognise.

The female teacher started "freaking out" when she "could see skin" in an unsent video that "looked like it was one of hers", the panel heard.

She told the panel the clip was something that she would not want people to see, so she "deleted it quickly".

The woman could see the WhatsApp profile picture in the chat, which looked like Mr Fallows, but she was unsure because it looked like "quite an old picture", the panel heard.

After admitting what he had done, the maths teacher said he used the woman's Instagram account to find her date of birth, which he then used to guess her phone password, the panel heard.

'Deep impact'

Mr Fallows said he "just looked at photos and videos and that there was a thumbnail of a video on her phone which he tried to send to himself", the panel was told.

The panel noted that the "only explanation given for Mr Fallows's behaviour was that he had some attraction to the woman", and that his "personal and professional circumstances had impacted on his behaviour".

Explaining his actions, the teacher said he "allowed curiosity to be overtaken by adrenaline and complete lack of judgement or awareness of impact and consequence".

Mr Fallows added he was "aware of the deep impact [his] behaviour has had and will be likely to continue to have on the victim of [his] actions, as well as the school."

The school's head teacher, Steve Border, said "immediate action" was taken by the school when the incident occurred.

Mr Border said Mr Fallows had not been on school premises since October 2023 and left employment in December the same year.

"The school provided support to those affected and measures were taken to ensure that the disruption to children's education was minimised," Mr Border added.