An ex-Ashby teacher has been barred from the profession after having a sexual relationship with a former pupil.

John Phillip Smith sent a picture of himself in his underwear to the female and, on one occasion, was "touching himself" and asked her to touch herself while on a phone call together, a teaching misconduct panel found.

The "inappropriate" relationship occurred between 2015 and 2021 after Mr Smith left the school where the female, named as Pupil A, was enrolled.

No information has been given publicly on Pupil A's age at the time.

However, a report by the Teaching Regulation Agency states that she was still at school for at least some of the period of the relationship.

Mr Smith had left Pupil A's school in order to start a new job, and was working at Ashby School, in Ashby, in 2021 when the accusations came to light.

The panel hearing the case said Mr Smith had accepted he had messaged and emailed Pupil A after leaving her school, had spoken with her on the phone and had met with her once. However, he denied throughout the misconduct process that anything sexual had taken place.

Despite his denial, the panel overseeing the case ruled Pupil A's account of the relationship to be "more credible" and found all but one of the accusations against Mr Smith to be proven.

The panel did not find proven claims that Mr Smith engaged in overly familiar or inappropriate conduct with Pupil A while he was a teacher at her school.

Among the accusations levelled against him were claims that Mr Smith had sent pictures to Pupil A, including photographs of him at the gym and one of him in his underwear, which Mr Smith denied.

However, the panel members said that had Pupil A been lying about that, they believed she would have exaggerated the sexual nature of the pictures. As such, they found the claim proven.

They also ruled that Mr Smith had "more likely than not" sent messages to Pupil A that were of a "sexual nature". The messages, according to Pupil A's evidence, included Mr Smith saying he wished he had kissed her on the last day of his employment at her school, and messages which "express[ed] his sexual desires towards [Pupil A] and describe[d] what he wanted to do to [her] in great detail".

Pupil A claimed Mr Smith spoke "a lot" about sex, and added that she had received "quite a few" drunk messages from him which were also sexual. Pupil A alleged Mr Smith would then apologise the next morning for his behaviour, telling her he had been drunk.

Again, Mr Smith denied the claims. Pupil A was unable to produce the alleged messages for the panel, saying she had deleted them when police became involved in 2021. At the time, she said, she had not considered the relationship to be inappropriate and was "worried" Mr Smith "would get into trouble". No legal action was taken against Mr Smith following the police investigation.

Despite not having access to the alleged messages, the panel said Pupil A had been consistent in her account. Members also questioned why Mr Smith would have given her his personal contact details, saying they did not think the move was "of an innocent nature".

The panel added: "It was more likely than not that he provided his personal email address and phone number to Pupil A with a view to continuing a friendship which crossed professional boundaries."

The female also described a "late-night" phone call in which Mr Smith was "asking Pupil A to talk about fairly sexual things and was […] touching himself". Pupil A said she was still of school age when the alleged call happened.

She added that Mr Smith "asked [her] to touch [herself] while he touched himself" and suggested she go to his house to see him. Mr Smith denied the claims, but the panel decided Pupil A's evidence carried more weight.

The panel said Pupil A was vulnerable at the time of Mr Smith's conduct. Pupil A would "turn to" Mr Smith for support and had an "emotional dependence" on him, the panel said. In turn, Mr Smith shared aspects of his own life and difficulties with her, which members said further developed the trust between them.

This was "inappropriate given the power imbalance created as a result of his position as a trusted adult", the panel ruled.

It added: "Since the relationship quickly escalated with Mr Smith testing the waters saying that he wished he had kissed Pupil A, to sending messages of an overtly sexual nature and holding conversations with them of a sexual nature, the panel was satisfied that this inferred his conduct […] was sexually motivated."

While Mr Smith denied the allegations of sexual behaviour, he did accept there were aspects of what he did which "were not the right thing to do". Among them, he accepted that he should not have turned to Pupil A for emotional support and should not have maintained contact with her after leaving the school.

Mr Smith, who was suspended from Ashby School when the allegations came to light, "expressed shame" over no longer being a teacher, the panel said.

He said he was a "shell of the person" he once was, and stated: "I have been trying [unsuccessfully to] put my life together since then, but there is a gaping hole where the vocation that I love so much used to be. I would never repeat the mistakes that I have made."

Ultimately, however, decision maker Sarah Buxcey ruled that Mr Smith should be banned from teaching "indefinitely" and would not be entitled to apply for his eligibility to teach to be restore due to "the seriousness of the allegations found proven against him".