A HEREFORDSHIRE primary school teacher has been banned from teaching for life after a conviction for historical child sex offences.

Jeremy Townend, 61, who taught at a school in Herefordshire between September 1996 to August 2002, has been prohibited from being employed in the profession again.

A professional conduct meeting was brought forward by the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) after Townend was convicted of five counts of indecent assault on a girl under sixteen.

The offences took place between May and December 2001, the meeting heard.

On 16 June 2022, Townend was sentenced at Cambridge Crown Court to a 54-month custodial sentence and was placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.

The recently published report said there was no evidence to suggest that Townend had abused his position of trust as a teacher or while working in a teaching environment.

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He had been employed at Orleton Church of England Primary School in north Herefordshire at the time of the offending, but there was no evidence that his offending involved any of his pupils.

However, it was found that he had abused the position of trust that he held through his relationship with the victim and her family in order to advance a sexual relationship.

The panel heard that he had committed a serious offence involving a child and noted that the behaviour involved in committing the offence would have been likely to have had an impact on the safety and security of pupils, as well as members of the public.

The panel concluded that Townend had exploited the victim’s young age and the fact she was impressionable and had engineered opportunities for the two of them to be together to engage in sexual activity, with the offending taking place on multiple occasions across a prolonged period.

The panel concluded Townend's actions were "calculated and motivated", and therefore it was "necessary to impose a prohibition order" in order to maintain public confidence in the profession.