Teacher, 59, who browsed porn 74 times while teaching remotely is banned from the profession

A high school teacher who browsed porn while teaching remotely has been banned from the profession.

David Chidlow has been fired from Maidstone Grammar School in Kent after viewing profiles of women on an unauthorized site 74 times during school hours.

During a virtual hearing into wrongdoing by the Teaching Regulation Agency, Mr Chidlow admitted to repeatedly switching between the live class and the website on Microsoft Teams.

Mr Chidlow, 59, has worked as a business and economics teacher for both GCSE and A-level students. He had been at the school since September 2018.

Following the school’s investigation, a formal disciplinary hearing was held in May 2021. And last week the panel concluded that Mr Chidlow would be fired for gross misconduct.

The panel was informed that in February 2021, the school’s monitoring software had marked the keywords ‘I take my life’ from an employee’s school equipment.

These keywords led to an investigation that revealed that Mr Chidlow had visited an adult porn website on his school laptop in February and March 2021. It was also recorded that he deleted the adult website from his internet history.

Chidlow further admitted at the recent hearing that he searched for images and actively communicated via email with women on the pornographic website for sexual gratification.

During the hearing, it was revealed that the school had been monitoring the teacher’s laptop remotely without his knowledge.

The panel said the teacher had “showed some insight into his actions” but did not believe he was “repenting” with regard to the students, the school or the teaching profession.

He was found guilty of unacceptable professional misconduct, with the panel advising the Secretary of State to ban him from teaching now.

Sarah Buxcey, who made a decision on the issues on behalf of the education minister, said a ban would be “proportionate.”

She said: ‘In my opinion, it is necessary to impose a ban in order to maintain public confidence in the profession. I am thinking in particular of the finding of unfairness in this case and the impact that such a finding has on the reputation of the profession.

‘I started to consider the issue of an evaluation period. In this case, the panel has advised not to provide for a review period.’

A review period gives a judge a certain amount of time to challenge the decision of the public body.

Ms Buxcey added: ‘In addition, given the seriousness of the allegations that have been made against him, I have decided that Mr Chidlow has no right to apply for reinstatement of his eligibility to teach. ‘