Ivybridge teacher got drunk with pupils and groped colleague

Dr Tom Kershaw was a science teacher at Ivybridge Community College

A teacher took part in a drinking game with students and groped a colleague at a school prom, a conduct panel heard.

Dr Tom Kershaw also bought jewellery for a pupil and "failed to maintain appropriate professional boundaries" in communication with a student, the hearing was told.

Dr Kershaw was head of year at Ivybridge Community College in Devon and had organised the prom event.

The Teaching Regulation Agency banned him from teaching for five years.

The panel heard Dr Kershaw, 40, took part in a drinking game at the school prom in June 2018 that involved downing drinks with Year 13 boys.

The school has been approached for comment.

'Giggly and laughing'

In evidence, one witness said: "Dr Kershaw was playing a 'down the drinks game' with pupils. From what I understand, if a penny was put into your drink you had to 'down' it."

Another witness said Dr Kershaw, a science teacher, was "displaying drunken behaviour including slurred speech, he was very giggly and laughing, his lack of control of body, for example, he was stumbling, grabbing on to things to stabilise himself and his pitch of voice was very loud."

The colleague groped by Dr Kershaw at the prom said he had "stumbled" and "grabbed" her "to straighten himself".

But in evidence, she said: "Then his hand stopped at my left breast, he then cupped and groped my left breast."

She said Dr Kershaw, who denies the groping allegation, was cupping her breast for "a couple of seconds" or "three to four seconds".

"Long enough that I had noticed it and the pupils around me could see it," she said.

At one point Dr Kershaw told a group of people he would like to have sex with the colleague in a voice "loud enough that the students stood around her all heard it".

'Inappropriate and unprofessional'

The panel found a series of emails from Dr Kershaw to a pupil, in which he used the term "Hun" and signed off with an "X", were "unprofessional and/or inappropriate".

Dr Kershaw also bought jewellery for the pupil, which the panel said constituted "a failure to maintain professional boundaries".

The panel found it was "inappropriate and unprofessional" for Dr Kershaw to have given the gift but did not consider it was given "in a sexual manner or in pursuit of sexual gratification".

In his defence regarding his excessive drinking, Dr Kershaw told the panel he had become "caught in a situation where I was being bought drinks by students at the bar and drinking rapidly with them, and I drank to a level that was inappropriate".

He told the panel he could not recall the groping incident and added: "I deny, even in my intoxicated state, that I would deliberately grope anyone."

The panel noted Dr Kershaw's remorse but found "being intoxicated was no defence or excuse for his behaviour at the school prom".

He was banned from teaching in any school or sixth-form college and cannot apply for the prohibition order to be set aside for at least five years.