A science teacher who exchanged over 2,000 flirty emails with a 15-year-old schoolgirl, including fantasising about them meeting in a sauna, has been banned from the classroom for life.
Alex Mohammed, 35, who was co-director of science at Durrington High School in Worthing, West Sussex, was warned about being too friendly with a group of year 11 girls in his classroom outside teaching hours.
But he went on to secretly send thousands of inappropriate emails and photos to a group of girls, including messages ‘suggestive of sexual grooming’, in the evening and at weekends.
After discovering the evidence, the school contacted police, who launched an investigation but did not bring criminal proceedings, after which Mr Mohammed left the teaching profession to become a managing consultant.
Now, a panel has found Mr Mohammed should have reported safeguarding concerns in relation to his messages with five schoolgirls, and that he chatted to one, referred to a ‘Pupil A’, in an especially perverted manner.
Of the more than 2,000 emails he exchanged with the girl between April 7, 2022 and 13 May, 2022, when he was 31, the panel found ‘very few’ could be considered professional.
Among those was a conversation about ‘what might happen’ if they bumped into each other in a sauna, and informal chats about the underage girl drinking alcohol.
On May 11, he sent her a snap of himself in bed at around 6:45pm, and she responded with a photograph of her wearing a dressing down.
He repeatedly complimented the 15-year-old’s appearance, telling her she looked ‘good’ and had ‘cute’ hair.
Mr Mohammed told her ‘I’m in bed,’ asked her at 12:37am ‘You gone to sleep yet,’ and urged her to ‘wait until the summer till we waffle and we both be bad!’
The science teacher also said ‘I’m glad you aren’t with him any more lol,’ in reference to Pupil A’s ex-boyfriend.
He moaned that she was ‘never nice actually about me… not physically me anyways,’ and asked her not to be ‘sarcastic about my figure’.
Messages from five girls referenced struggling or feeling down at home but, instead of reporting safeguarding concerns, as he should have done, Mr Mohammed replied in overly-friendly terms, the panel found.
Mr Mohammed was warned in January 2022 about being ‘too informal’ with groups of mostly female year 11 students gathering in his classroom, and again for the same reason in May 2022.
Colleagues also took issue with his behaviour around the same group of year 11 girls at the leavers’ ball on June 30.
The school launched an investigation, which included speaking to pupils and combing through his school email account – where they uncovered the tranche of dodgy messages, and turned them over to the police.
By December 2022, the police confirmed they would not be initiating criminal proceedings, meaning the school was clear to resume its investigation.
It interviewed Mr Mohammed in the course of this, and he acknowledged that the timing and content of some of his emails had been inappropriate.
The one allegation that Mr Mohammed disputed was that his correspondence with Pupil A had been sexually motivated.
However, by considering the volume of the messages and discussions such as being in bed, the panel found the messages were ‘suggestive of sexual grooming’.
It made a recommendation to the Home Secretary that Mr Mohammed is banned from teaching for life.
