Teacher asked pupil to 'imagine he’s six inches’

A TEACHER sent a teenage student a social media message asking what she'd do if he was “pocket size” and could do anything she wanted with him.

- ABBIE WIGHTWICK

Chef Mark Robertson was appearing before a professional standards hearing where he accepts sending social media messages but denies his conduct was sexual in nature or sexually motivated

Mark Robertson told a professional standards hearing they had been discussing the “tiny chef” in the Disney animation Ratatouille and insisted nothing sexual was meant by the late-evening Instagram message.

The message from the Coleg Cambria teacher was read out at the Education Workforce Council Wales fitness to practise hearing. The message from the former hospitality and catering teacher to his 18-year-old student, identified as Learner One, read: “Imagine I am pocket size, like six inches, and you find me. You realise you can do anything you want with me. What would you do? And only you and me would know?”

Asked if the message, sent after 10pm, had sexual connotations, Robertson insisted no sexual innuendo was meant and said it had been taken out of context.

But EWC presenting officer Freddie Lewendon said: “We are talking about six inches. We are talking about the male member.”

Robertson replied: “We are not. We are talking about the size of a rat. I am not that type of person. If I was going to go down that route, I could be a lot more graphic or wait until she left the college”

Robertson said the student was worried about cooking exams, and he suggested he could be like rat Remy in the 2007 Disney film Ratatouille, who hides under a trainee chef's hat.

Learner One screenshotted the message but Robertson said he had deleted the other messages “in panic” after he heard an investigation had been launched.

He had previously had a written warning from the college about messaging students on social media on an unrelated matter in 2019.