In the United Kingdom yesterday: teacher banned from the profession for life after conducting a relationship with a pupil of 15
Yesterday the Daily Mail reported on the case of Philip Barnwell, 36, who was banned from the teaching profession for life after conducting a relationship with a 15-year-old pupil.
I reproduce it because it might help focus the minds of those unbelievable people in Malta who think there might actually be something which justifies a teacher taking a pupil out in his car, keeping her out all night, and driving her to Dingli Cliffs.
Even up to that point it is a major transgression. What followed from there puts what is already a major transgression into a whole new league of wrong-doing.
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Headteacher, 36, had affair with 15-year-old pupil after taking her on trips to the seaside and hotels
By Lizzie Edmonds
PUBLISHED: 13:01 GMT, 24 March 2014 | UPDATED: 13:21 GMT, 24 March 2014
A headteacher who had an affair with a 15-year-old pupil who he later got pregnant has been banned from teaching for life.
Philip Barnwell, 36, plied the girl – known only as Pupil A – with alcoholic drinks, took her to the seaside, and let her share his bed, a professional conduct panel was told.
The relationship continued after the girl left the school and she fell pregnant with the teacher’s baby at 17, the hearing heard.
An investigation in to the relationship was halted after Mr Barnwell was sacked from the school in 2008 as the girl refused to be interviewed and Mr Barnwell did not comment.
However, details of the affair resurfaced when Mr Barnwell applied for another job in teaching and he was ordered to face a professional conduct hearing.
The panel ruled that while Mr Barnwell was employed at Woodside High School in Wood Green, north London, between 2007 and 2008, he had an inappropriate relationship with the Year 11 student.
This amounted to unacceptable professional conduct, it said.
Mr Barnwell insists he is innocent and denies he had an inappropriate relationship with the girl.
However, Alan Meyrick, deputy director for teacher regulation at the Department for Education, banned him from the profession for good.
He said: “Mr Barnwell abused the position of trust that he held and he engaged in sexual activity with Pupil A. This is very serious misconduct. I am satisfied that Mr Barnwell’s actions were both deliberate and, at times, carefully planned.”
Mrs Mary Speakman, who chaired the hearing, said: “The relationship is said to have involved the teacher frequently spending time alone with Pupil A in school time, communications by text and MSN between them, pre-arranged meetings outside school and overnight stays.”
The panel also heard how the girl stayed at the head teacher’s home and shared his bed, while on another occasion they spent two nights together in the Royal York Hotel in Brighton during term-time.
After she left the school in September 2008, they ‘appeared very close’ when spotted in a park together, the hearing was told.
Later that month, Mr Barnwell took her to a hotel for the night and the next day the pair had to go to a clinic as the girl needed the morning-after pill.
The hearing was told how Mr Barnwell spoke about his relationship with the girl to another pupil who was in her academic year. This pupil gave evidence, along with two teachers.
According to the Sunday Mirror, a classmate said: ‘He told me that they were in a relationship and loved each other.’
She also told the hearing: “My friend slept in the bed with Mr Barnwell.” She added that gossip about the “inappropriate relationship” was all over school.
Mr Barnwell was suspended from his post in July 2008 while the police and the school held investigations into his conduct.
By this time, the pupil had just finished her GCSEs. He was eventually dismissed.
Mrs Speakman told the hearing: “Our factual findings, taken together, provide an abundance of evidence to establish that Mr Barnwell had a relationship with Pupil A, one of his school pupils, which was totally inappropriate and involved sexual activity.”
The panel, run by the National College for Teaching and Leadership, heard the girl – described as ‘bright and hard working’ – came from a broken home. She had little contact with her natural mother and none with her father.
Mrs Speakman added: “Parents and others must be able to entrust children, particularly those who are vulnerable because of family or other circumstances, to the care of teachers, confident that teachers will observe professional boundaries towards those whom they teach. We conclude that the evidence in the case demonstrates conclusively that Mr Barnwell’s conduct renders him incompatible with remaining as a member of the profession and that a prohibition order should be imposed.”
Mr Meyrick, acting on behalf of Education Secretary Michael Gove, said that the head teacher’s attitude showed “a lack of acknowledgement of the seriousness of his behaviour, the damage caused to the collective reputation of the profession and the way that it undermines public confidence in the profession.” He said he had seen no evidence of insight or remorse.
Mr Meyrick banned Mr Barnwell from teaching in any school, sixth form college, youth accommodation or children’s home in England.
Mr Barnwell, who was present for part of the hearing, denied the facts of the case and denied he had had an inappropriate relationship with the girl.
Asked about the case earlier, he said: “I am innocent, but as the term “inappropriate relationship” is not clearly defined in either the school handbook or in government guidelines, I feel that, regardless of any actual evidence, I will be found guilty as charged.”
He was given 28 days in which to appeal against the decision to the High Court.
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2587945/Headteacher-36-affair-15-year-old-pupil-taking-trips-seaside-hotels.html#ixzz2wziYCIW5
But how many roadkill cats did Barnwell crucify?
Now THAT’s the real question.
By the way, here’s some delightful prose produced by our dear Stewart Tanti himself:
“To me, there is nothing worse than a drop-dead gorgeous girl that suddenly says something amazingly dumb. She’s spoilt for me. I’m a sapiosexual, so you can’t blame me for being a misogynist if I’m all like “Honey, shut your mouth. What you just said makes you a case against women’s rights”. Actually, there is something worse, I take that back. It’s when a drop-dead gorgeous female artist says something like “I stopped going to the Manoel when I was 10, and I’ve no shame in admitting it. I refuse to subject myself to local productions anymore. If I want to see something worth seeing I go to London. Nothing impresses me here anymore”.”
http://insiteronline.com/news/art-shut/
What a blithering, sexist idiot. ‘you can’t blame me for being a misogynist’ – oh, indeed.
He and Muscat must have that sense of so-called ‘British humour’ in common, I guess.
I might be wrong here and forgive me if I am, but the more I find out about this Stewart Tanti since that girl went missing (may she rest in peace), the more I picture him as one of those ‘unique special snowflakes’ who come up with unusual ways to attract attention.
I guess people like this are not that uncommon, especially at the university. All he needs now is to contribute to their newly established ‘The Piece of Sheet’.
Considering his behaviour, he should most definitely not have been a schoolteacher.
From the above piece from which I quoted, it’s clear that he’s the type of man who associates attractive women with vapidity, so by default all intelligent women must be ugly or plain.
In any case he seriously seems to have issues. Probably been rejected one time too many and his ego couldn’t take it. It’s no wonder he probably could never relate to women his own age.
‘Honey, shut your mouth’ – ugh, how patronizing.
All we’re seeing on the Maltese media is the typical “you can’t judge” and similar rationalisations.
When a teacher takes a pupil to some cliffs in dead of night and she ends up dead, he can expect plenty of flak.
The only good that can come out of this girl’s tragedy is that, hopefully, schools will keep an eye on their current staff, and will be more careful with regards to who they employ to work with children.
Social networks have become part of life. No amount of warnings or rules will control teachers as Malta has now reached the dangerous stage were these sites are involved.
The only way that filters abuse and incorrect behaviour, is by having a full-time Facebook/social network audit team to monitor the situation – these should be employed full-time by each school – state, private and church.
As a mother to daughters I find his behaviour disgusting. I a woman who gave birth to my beautiful daughters born innocent, I their mother who at every step tries to protect them against hurt, who has spent all their lives loving them, making their lives fun, happy with nice memories. Why does he think he has the right to ruin that, to take any young girl’s life and turn her into his sick fantasy!
Exactly. Her friends have repetitively said she was ‘sad’ – only to defend Erin.
Judging from his behaviour splashed in everyone’s face on Facebook, I conclude that the child was not sad; she was just vulnerable as most of us are sometimes, and especially at that age. Someone else made her believe she was sad and let’s face it, at 15 one believes anything if it comes from an admired source. A 15 year old is not considered a minor for nothing.
It is Stewart Tanti who is the sad one – sad due to psychological problems related to not being able to understand his own self, identity and profession at 23 and mostly sad for not being able to handle his perverse sexual needs without involving underage people.
Although some who know him have said that the man in question has a self-inflated ego, I very much think that at the same time, he has problems with acceptance, distortion in personality and sexual expression.
And this goes to her ‘friends’ as well – who took the opportunity to seek the know it all attention, come in here to declare ‘that she was sad’, champion Erin and make him ‘the Hero’ in all this. How low can you go?
You’re a sad lot, highly influenced by a ‘sad’ person who can’t even handle his own self let alone handle the growing pains girls normally go through.
Well, what do you expect. After all according to Ms. Marie Louise Preca the Social Policy Minister, he’s still a child at 23.
Daphne, how can one contact you via email? It’s a very important matter. Thanks.
[Daphne – dcgalizia@gmail.com]
“I am innocent, but as the term “inappropriate relationship” is not clearly defined in either the school handbook or in government guidelines, I feel that, regardless of any actual evidence, I will be found guilty as charged.”
Someone explain to this other one that he’ll never find that definition anywhere, in any book.
Inappropriate isn’t something to read about in a rule book, indeed if one has to, they won’t ever understand it.
A bit like those who insist there’s no hurt or betrayal if a life companion, husband or wife are lied to “to protect them”.
What happened this week has to offer some very deep signals counteracting the shrill frenzy for a liberty we think can exist without any obligation.
There was this growing mood for transgression as some form of emancipation – that it would come to the sacrifice a life was, obviously, unexpected.
But it just did.
The callous flippancy about anything worth believing in is coming across in the comments defending what we all know deep down to be indefensible.
And if misled and jaded fifteen-year-olds, protecting their Manga hero, vouching he can do no wrong, are taken at their word rather than put straight about the small matter of wrong and right, then we’re abandoning them to a forced virtual adulthood.
Well said, Jozef. However, with the warped thinking, both in the general public and the justice system, this creep will walk.
What’s significant is how everyone seems at a loss where to start. I take it most simply don’t want to ‘judge’ lest it means taking in the stale air we’ve reserved ourselves.
What is intolerable is romanticising her death to correspond with the national pastime: fatalistic indulgence.
Portraying him as some victim of society will be the uttermost hypocrisy. I refuse to include him as one of ‘us’.
His culpability cannot be emphasized enough if we want to avoid the endless chit-chat about cyber-bullying and the rest.
Or do we want to censor ourselves as usual?
Marelli how closed-minded these British are. They really need to learn how to be a bit more liberal from us Maltese.
One must bear in mind that very recently Malta witnessed a major child-abuse scandal involving priest and boarders. Most of the culprits got a way very lightly or Scot-free.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
It is time for the courts to stop acting with the increased leniency they have shown over the last few years, and acknowledge that adults acting inappropriately with under age children is not on and is never excusable or acceptable
I was, in fact, pointing out the court leniency to which you’re referring and the sick attitude the nation has towards child protection.
Clearly, this case isn’t equal to James Bulger’s case – the 4 year old toddler who was snatched from a supermarket by two boys under 15.
They were minors at the time and were charged even though they were minors but the case of Erin Stewart Palmier refers to minor versus adult.
Give Barnwell his due you unfair lot, at least he had the moral decency NOT to drive her to Dingli Cliffs and jump off with her/chuck her off (then follow as an afterthought).
Are Tanti-Palmier’s pupil/friends still falling over themselves to defend the deviant jerk? Sorry but I’ve been busy.
Joseph Muscat’s regime wasn’t even able to mimic their sense of humour let alone their proficiency.