Education chief uploaded abuse images via app

Police searched Mr Cooper's office at Thomas Bewick School

The chief executive at an education trust helping vulnerable children uploaded images and videos of sexual abuse.

Police were alerted after James Cooper - known until earlier this year as Mark Jones - used messaging platform Kik to access the images.

Mr Cooper, who worked for the Newcastle-based Prosper Learning Trust at the time, was arrested in October 2021 and later made the subject of a two-year Sexual Risk Order, although he denied several of the allegations.

He has now been banned from teaching in England after a panel ruled his behaviour amounted to unacceptable professional conduct and/or conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute.

The Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) heard a series of indecent images were uploaded to the internet via Kik between March and June 2021 through accounts set up using Mr Cooper's email address.

He was arrested in October that year, with Northumbria Police searching his office at Newcastle's Thomas Bewick School and seizing personal devices from his home.

Having subsequently being suspended by the trust, he resigned in July the following year.

Initial images uploaded featured girls between the ages of six and 16, while a second batch included videos of abuse.

No children from the trust were involved and none of the organisation’s property had been used to access the images that police identified.

'Bad people'

In findings that included a number of details being redacted, the panel said that during a disciplinary investigation meeting on 5 July 2022, Mr Cooper stated he had searched the internet for incidents where people had been attacked.

He said he had wanted to find "bad people" to try to understand why people offend, adding that while he was not going to dispute what police had found, "it wasn't what it seems".

Accepting he used the messaging platform to engage with people he suspected of sharing images, he claimed he had not looked at the offending files and would "damage the links" before passing them on to other people.

However, the panel said it had "no reason to doubt police evidence" and that Mr Cooper was "more likely than not to have uploaded indecent images of children".

In its findings, the panel said there was "no evidence to suggest that Mr Cooper’s actions were not deliberate".

Acknowledging he "had clearly experienced a series of traumatic events leading up to the allegations", it said it considered his actions "to be calculated and motivated".

Although the panel noted that Mr Cooper had demonstrated some degree of remorse for the disruption to his family, the panel said it was not satisfied he had demonstrated any insight about the potential harm caused to young people by engaging with people sharing images of abuse.

It banned him from working indefinitely in any school, sixth form college, youth accommodation or children’s home in England.

Mr Cooper has the right to appeal within 28 days of the decision having been made.