Cornwall Street’s Jonathan Storey (instructed by Michelle Stewart of Thompsons Solicitors) has today preserved the career of a Maths teacher from the North West of England who admitted breaching professional boundaries by sending excessive and inappropriate personal emails to a pupil over an eight week period in 2024.
Jonathan’s client was also charged (by the Teaching Regulation Agency) with sending emails outside the school’s working hours and with failing to follow both training and instructions given by the school’s Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead. The regulator also alleged that his emails were of a “sexual nature”, on the basis of their timing, their content, and the sender’s failure to disclose them to the school at the time. Having heard evidence from two prosecution witnesses and from Jonathan’s client, however, the professional conduct panel hearing his case accepted Jonathan’s submissions that none of those allegations were proved.
Although the regulator maintained through its Counsel that a period of prohibition from teaching was necessary, the panel and Secretary of State for Education accepted Jonathan’s submission that the publication of the panel’s findings alone was itself a sufficient and proportionate sanction and that – in the panel’s words – “the overall circumstances of the case, including the level of insight demonstrated, the significant remedial steps taken, the low risk of repetition, the absence of any finding of conduct of a sexual nature, and the absence of evidence of actual harm to [the pupil], weighed against recommending prohibition”.
Jonathan Storey is a specialist practitioner in the field of professional discipline, and is regularly instructed by trade unions and privately to represent teachers, sportspeople and other professionals facing proceedings brought by their regulators. He is ranked by Chambers and Partners UK Bar 2026 in Band 1 for Professional Discipline in The Regions and by Legal500 2026 as a Leading Junior (Band 1) for Professional disciplinary law. He works closely and compassionately with clients from the point of referral to their hearing outcome (and occasionally beyond, where it is necessary to do so), and as an experienced member of tribunals and other panels hearing cases against healthcare professionals is uniquely placed to guide and support those facing disciplinary proceedings through the strategy, tactics, analysis, preparation, legal considerations and personal growth needed to give them the best possible chance of success.