Bingley teacher sent hundreds of personal email to student

Matthew Kelly is a former assistant faculty lead at the school

A teacher who sent hundreds of emails "of a personal nature" to a pupil has been banned from the profession.

Matthew Kelly worked at Beckfoot School in Bingley when he engaged in 560 email exchanges with the student between September 2019 and January 2020.

Police later found images "which could indicate an interest in the sexual abuse of children" on his devices.

Mr Kelly, who was an assistant faculty lead at the school, did not attend a misconduct hearing about his behaviour.

The Teaching Regulation Authority (TRA) hearing was told how the teacher admitted sending "inappropriate emails" during one exchange in January 2020.

Days later, two sixth form students raised concerns about his actions and an investigation was launched.

His devices were forensically examined by West Yorkshire Police in July 2021.

They found images which included pictures of the pupil in question and three other images of what appeared to be pre-teen or pre-pubescent females performing sex acts, which "whilst not illegal, could indicate an interest in the sexual abuse of children, or be borderline on a decision regarding subjects being of legal age".

The TRA report stated that police advised there were no illegal images found and therefore no criminal charges were being pursued.

'Harsh lesson'

The panel concluded "it was more likely than not" the images were downloaded in the period when Mr Kelly, who left the school in February 2020, was employed there.

Police officers also discovered he had made more than 30 searches for the pupil's social media pages after the investigation into his behaviour began.

Of their 560 email exchanges, 139 took place at weekends or during holidays and 170 took place after 21:00.

In his submissions, Mr Kelly, who failed to report concerns to colleagues, said he was "isolated" in his support for the pupil and claimed there was a lack of guidance given to him.

He said he "would never allow himself to be in the same position again", and had "learnt an extremely harsh lesson".

Ruling on behalf of the secretary of state for education, Marc Cavey agreed with the misconduct panel's recommendation that Mr Kelly should not be able to appeal his ban.

Mr Cavey said there was an "absence of evidence" of Mr Kelly's full remorse for his behaviour.