Teacher 'searched teenage porn' on work laptop

Jonas Diete was a Year 6 teacher at Valley Primary Academy in Norwich

A teacher who searched for teenage pornography on a school laptop can remain in the profession, a misconduct hearing has ruled.

Jonas Diete, a former Year 6 teacher at Valley Primary Academy in Norwich, admitted to searching an explicit term while working at home during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mr Diete said he used a private browser on his work laptop as he had "forgotten" to use his personal device.

A Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) misconduct panel concluded that Mr Diete's "isolated incident" caused "no harm or risk of harm to pupils" and that banning him was "not proportionate".

'Sexual gratification'

Mr Diete's explicit search term was first detected by the school's IT system on 8 July 2020, the hearing was told.

Norfolk County Council was made aware of the allegations and police seized his devices.

Mr Diete told the panel he searched the term having logged off the school's online teaching system at the end of the school day.

He accepted that he had gone online "for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification".

He claimed that the term "teen" had not been used in reference to children and that it was a "category of pornography that he had seen on other websites before".

'Serious nature'

The panel accepted Mr Diete's explanation of the categorisation of pornography, and that the police found no evidence of material relating to children.

It said it was satisfied the incident "amounted to misconduct of a serious nature" and that his actions "may bring the profession into disrepute".

However, the panel believed it was an isolated incident, which was "unlikely to be repeated", and that evidence showed Mr Diete was a good teacher.

The TRA concluded that a prohibition order, which would have prevented Mr Diete from teaching, was not in the public interest and that the publication of the findings "would be sufficient to send an appropriate message".

HEART Education Trust, which runs Valley Primary Academy, told the BBC Mr Diete no longer worked there.

Trust chief executive Hazel Cubbage said there was no "greater priority" than the children's safety and she praised staff for responding to the incident "promptly".

"We have high expectations of all our employees in relation to their professional conduct, both on and offsite," she said.

"Those who believe it is appropriate to use school-owned devices for pornography searches - or indeed to use personal devices for accessing pornography during working hours or where those searches are prefaced by the word "teen" - would be best to apply for employment elsewhere."

Valley Primary Academy was last inspected by Ofsted in June and was rated as requires improvement.