Spalding head teacher James Shawley struck off over child sex abuse charges

James Shawley taught at St Bartholomew's Primary in West Pinchbeck, near Spalding

A head teacher has been banned from the profession indefinitely after being convicted of child sex abuse charges.

James Shawley was jailed in 2021 having been found guilty of charges including attempting to arrange or facilitate the commission of a child sex offence.

According to reports he was caught in a police sting operation.

Shawley, who taught at St Bartholomew's Primary in West Pinchbeck near Spalding was barred from teaching after a Teaching Regulation Agency hearing.

A Stamford Mercury report of Shawley's sentencing hearing said he had been charged after he sent sexually explicit messages to an undercover police officer posing as a 14-year-old boy and tried to arrange a meeting at a cinema in Huntingdon with the intention of having sex with him.

He was jailed for four-and-a-half years and placed on the sex offenders register for 15 years in May 2021.

The Teaching Regulation Agency panel concluded that Shawley was a "role model" and an experienced teacher and leader who was in a position of trust and responsibility, but who had "fallen far short of the standards expected of him".

It added that a prohibition order was "proportionate and in the public interest" given the "very serious offences" he was convicted of, and concluded that he should "not be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach".