Dudley head jailed for £19k pay rise sign-off trick

The court heard David Bishop-Rowe had not been in any financial hardship

A head teacher has been jailed for tricking a colleague with "poor eyesight" into signing off a £19,000 pay rise.

David Bishop-Rowe, 67, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years for three counts of fraud at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Wednesday.

Bishop-Rowe worked at Sutton School and Specialist College in Dudley since 2002 until being suspended in April 2014.

The judge, Recorder Simon Ash-Casey, said he had "abused his position".

The former head had denied all charges against him but a jury in October found him guilty of two counts of abusive position fraud and one count of false representation fraud between September 2011 and September 2013.

Mr Ash-Casey said the defendant was in no financial hardship at the time and even bought a property in Spain.

In 2017, Bishop-Rowe was banned from his profession after a hearing by The National College for Teaching and Leadership panel.

The panel heard how the colleague who signed off the pay rise - which took Mr Bishop-Rowe's salary to £110,851 - said she "didn't know what she was signing".

He resigned from the school in May 2014 following his suspension.

Sutton School and Specialist College has around 180 pupils with a range of needs.

'Deprivation of funds'

Prosecutor Mark Jackson said he had caused a "deprivation of funds to a special school".

Bishop-Rowe was also found to have worked during school hours for his own consultancy company, Education Development Consultancy Limited, but claimed he made the time back during evenings and school holidays.

Catherine Ravenscroft, defending, said during his tenure Bishop-Rowe had maintained the Ofsted rating of "good".

"There were no complaints he was neglecting his roles as head teacher," she said.

He had recently come into some inheritance and voluntarily said he would pay back the money lost from the local authority and the school, Ms Ravenscroft added.

As he was jailed, the judge said he felt Bishop-Rowe had shown "no remorse" for his crimes after pleading not guilty.