Teacher who stole pupils’ school theatre trip money banned from classroom

Andrew Cowey said he was 'disgusted' by his behaviour

Households each took on an average £886 extra unsecured debt in twelve months (Getty/iStock)

A teacher who stole money given to him for school theatre trips has been banned from the profession.

Andrew Cowey falsely recorded that pupils from the Dene Community School in county Durham had attendied the trips for free, or received funding from a charity. But he kept the money for himself.

The 28-year-old, who carried out the theft from July 2016 to April 2017, has been banned from the classroom following a misconduct hearing, according to a Teaching Regulation Agency report.

It said Mr Cowey also deleted school trip funding spreadsheets to stop others seeing which pupils had paid money and he amended letters to parents to cover up the amount of money missing.

In April 2017, the headteacher ordered him not to take any more money from pupils for trips.

But the next day, Mr Cowey took £170 from a pupil for a school trip to London and gave a false explanation to the headteacher of why he had taken this money home.

The former teacher was convicted of theft at Durham Crown Court in December 2017 after pleading guilty.

He was ordered to pay £5,000 in compensation and given a 12-month community order.

The report said his conduct “clearly fell significantly short of the standards expected of the profession over a lengthy period of time”.

The professional conduct panel acknowledged that Mr Cowey had shown “some remorse” – as he said he had been “disgusted” by his behaviour which had arisen from the debt he found himself in.

Alan Meyrick, who made the final decision on behalf of the Department for Education, approved the panel’s recommendation that Mr Cowley be banned from teaching for at least five years.