Teacher cleared of seducing boys

Canadian biology teacher Amy Gehring was today cleared of indecently assaulting her pupils.

The jury at Guildford Crown Court found her not guilty of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old boy as he waited for his mother to pick him up from school, not guilty of indecently assaulting the same boy by having sex with him at a New Year's Eve party and not guilty of indecently assaulting his 14-year-old brother by having sex with him in an alleyway in Surrey.

Judge John Bull QC formally acquitted Miss Gehring of a fourth charge of indecently assaulting the 15-year-old at a friend's party after the jury failed to agree a verdict.

But as she was acquitted it emerged the 26-year-old farmer's daughter had already been under investigation over complaints involving two other boys at another London school, Sunbury Manor.

Miss Gehring slipped through a hole in the safety screen that is supposed to protect schoolchildren from sexually predatory teachers because the company that sent her out on supply teacher jobs did not alert the Department for Education and Skills after the first allegations were made.

Instead she was sent to a school in Surrey where she was accused of indulging in sex play with teenage pupils. She was cleared of five counts of indecent assault against three boys.

Wearing a black trouser suit and white shirt, Miss Gehring bit her lip and blinked back tears as the judge told her she was free to go. Her sister Erica, 23, sobbed from the public gallery as her sister was led from the dock. The judge, excused the seven male and five female jurors from having to do jury service in the next five years, saying "this has been particularly onerous for you".

The company that employed Miss Gehring was the London-based Time-Plan which sends out 6,000 supply teachers a year at a fee of around £150 a day. Today TimePlan said it had sacked its Surrey director, Robert Stonier, who had continued employing Miss Gehring despite warnings from police and social services officials.

The warnings came after allegations in October 2000 about Miss Gehring's behaviour with boy pupils at the school in south-west London. Miss Gehring was accused of having sex with one boy and passionately kissing another. Police investigated and the local Child Protection Unit launched its own inquiry. On 18 October 2000 the unit wrote to TimePlan advising the company not to place Miss Gehring with any more schools until the investigation had been completed. The company promised to alert the DfES which keeps List 99, the names of individuals considered not fit to work with children. It contains more than 2,500 names and by that time, late October, Miss Gehring's name should have been one of them.

But TimePlan did not report Miss Gehring to the department. David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said today that the obligation to set in motion the DfES's procedures should not rest with the agency that employs a teacher under suspicion. "The agency has a commercial interest in a teacher remaining in employment," he said. He said police and social services, who work together in child protection teams, should be required to alert the DfES immediately any allegations are made. "That would give a second line of defence for schools," he said.

And he demanded tougher regulations to keep teachers out of schools while they are under investigation: "If a teacher employed by a school is accused of abusing pupils, they are immediately suspended and they remain so until any police investigation has been concluded and the local child protection team is satisfied there are no concerns about whether they should be working with children," he said. "That should apply equally to teachers who are employed by teacher supply agencies. In this case, that does not appear to have happened."

John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said the vastly expanded market for supply teachers was now out of control and he called for firms like TimePlan to be licensed.

After the first allegations against Miss Gehring at Sunburry Manor police investigated but told TimePlan on 23 October, 2000, that they were not bringing criminal charges. TimePlan says the company believed this meant she had been cleared and set about finding new placements for her. In reality, Surrey's Child Protection Team was still making inquiries and in a letter to TimePlan on 9 November said it still had concerns about Miss Gehring.

Failing to act on this warning was a " ridiculous mistake" the company said. Its director of education, Chris King, has resigned.

TimePlan says it called in Miss Gehring to discuss the first allegations soon after they were made. An agency executive told the Evening Standard: "She was very, very tearful and totally distraught but promised us the whole thing was completely untrue."

The agency's view that she was innocent was made against a background of numerous cases in which besotted pupils make groundless sexual allegations about their teachers. And she had a spotless record. Her references were glowing and police files in both Britain and Canada made no mention of her.

TimePlan said that despite the verdict, it would not be employing Amy Gehring again. "She certainly won't be working for Time-Plan," a spokesman said. "She has shown quite clear by her actions and her behaviour with pupils that she is not suitable to be a teacher."

In a press statement, Surrey Police said the verdict should not deter children from coming forward to the police if they believed they had been assaulted by their teachers.

Investigating officer Pc Mandy Smith: "We would continue to encourage parents to listen to their children and support them in reporting allegations of criminal offences to the police."