Banned Teacher admitted having sex with teenager

A BRISTOL man has been banned from teaching for life after admitting he had sex with one of his pupils the day after she left school.

- Tristan CORK

Police investigated Richard Murphy, a religious education teacher at a secondary school in the city, but the CPS decided not to pursue a prosecution against him.

But now the case has gone before the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA), who banned him from teaching for the rest of his life, saying it was “disturbed” by what he had admitted had happened.

Murphy, now 35, was employed at the Bristol school from 2013 to 2021, with a short break in 2015. He admitted that from June 2015 until January 2021, he engaged in exchanging sexually explicit messages with the girl, known in the hearing as Pupil A, and engaged in sexual relations with her.

The TRA panel heard Murphy would send her sexually explicit photos taken in the staff toilets at the school, and their relationship developed into a fully sexual one on the day after she left school, when Murphy was 25.