Teacher banned for sending sexual messages to pupil

The teacher misconduct panel heard there were "1,500 pages of chat" between the teacher and pupil

A former deputy head teacher at a special school has been banned from the profession after she was found to have sent sexual messages to a child on WhatsApp.

Laura Hamblin, 40, was an English teacher, deputy head and a safeguarding lead at the school in Herefordshire.

In March 2024, she was arrested on suspicion of sexual communication with a child, for which she later pleaded guilty and received a suspended sentence.

A Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel has now banned her from teaching indefinitely.

Hamblin was employed by the school in June 2017 and resigned on 30 September 2024, about six months after her arrest.

She admitted at Gloucestershire Magistrates' Court that she had sent WhatsApp messages and voice notes of a sexual nature to a child in March 2024.

The TRA panel heard how there were "1,500 pages of chat" between Hamblin and the pupil concerned, which the judge described in court as "damaging" to the pupil.

The sentencing remarks, referred to by the tribunal panel, described her as being in a position of trust in relation to the child concerned, who was particularly vulnerable.

'Full on sexual fantasy'

The judge said Hamblin acquired his phone number in order to facilitate him getting to school.

"There was every reason for you to be admired and looked up to by him by giving him extra reward points and developing a much more personal relationship with him than was ever appropriate, as you must have known," the judge said.

"The personal messages started to become flirtatious. So for a period really of about three weeks you were communicating... in an inappropriate way, and for the last week of that... those messages became full on sexual fantasy exchanges."

In the sentencing remarks, the judge added: "That activity and the fallout of it being revealed and the embarrassment to [the pupil] about it has put him back in school, [...] interrupting his education, losing the person who had been his favourite teacher, and so the effects reverberate up.

"They are serious for that boy and his family."

On 14 November 2024, Hamblin received a suspended sentence at Gloucester Crown Court, together with a rehabilitation activity requirement, an unpaid work requirement, a restraining order, a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and a requirement to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years.