Private school teacher banned from classrooms after masturbating at undercover officer posing as teen

Christopher Dunsmore spent a decade teaching at the £18,300-a-year school

A screenshot showing the entrance to Colfe’s School, southeast London (Google Maps)

An ex-teacher from a prestigious London private school has been struck off after he was caught masturbating on camera to an undercover officer posing as a 14-year-old girl.

On Tuesday, the secretary of state for education prohibited Christopher Dunsmore, who taught at Colfe’s School in Greenwich, southeast London, from teaching indefinitely on the recommendation of a professional conduct panel.

The 31-year-old will not be able to teach in any school, sixth-form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England, the report into the decisions states.

Dunsmore, who spent a decade teaching at the £18,300-a-year school, had previously been given a six month suspended sentence and was placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years after he was found guilty of attempting sexual communications with a child.

The panel heard he had identified himself by his first name to the officer posing as a girl in August 2017. Dunsmore said he was 36 and a teacher. He proceeded to masturbate on camera.

He told police he had an addiction to using chat rooms which he would use contact young girls, telling them he was a teacher and making offers to help with school work to lure them into speaking to him.

He added that if he upset a child, he would change his username.

Following two police interviews in which he refused to offer comment, Dunsmore admitted “he engaged in sexual conversations with 13-to-15-year-olds for sexual gratification.”

He alleged he had started using chatrooms weekly from the age of 21 - and chose to seek out teenage girls on the sites “as people in their 20s are unwilling to chat”.

“He said that he had been doing this since he was 21, roughly once a week, that he would do it at home, that he had never met up with anyone he had chatted to, and that he was not sexually attracted to children,” the report into the panel’s decisions and recommendations reads.

“He said that the nature of what he was doing made him excited and he liked the idea of breaking the rules.”

According to the teaching regulation ombudsman, while being investigated for an offence committed in August 2017, Dunsmore committed a similar crime in 2019. He was convicted and sentenced for both on 9 November 2020 at Woolwich Crown Court.

“It was apparent to the panel that even an ongoing police investigation had not dissuaded Mr Dunsmore from his offending behaviour, and indicates a real risk of repetition,” the Teaching Regulation Agency said.

Decision maker John Knowles said while court’s ruling “had some insight into the nature of his behaviour”, the second conviction meant there was a risk of a repeat of Dunsmore’s behaviour.

Mr Knowles said the blanket ban on Dunsmore teaching in schools in England was necessary to “maintain public confidence in the profession”.