An east London teacher who distributed videos of child sexual abuse has been banned from the profession.
Iain Saxton, 49, was employed as a teacher at Woodford County High School when in September 2023 he was arrested on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children.
In July 2024 he pleaded guilty to six criminal charges, admitting that he had used Telegram to access and download images of child sexual abuse and had distributed them onwards, London Now reports.
Court charges stated that the images downloaded were of pre-pubescent boys and young male teenagers, with some of them falling into the most serious category of child abuse images.
Saxton, from Walthamstow, had distributed the images onwards between May and September 2023.
None of the offending related to pupils at Woodford County High School, an all-girls school which Saxton had worked at since 2010.
Saxton received a two-year suspended sentence and was ordered to sign the Sexual Offenders Register for ten years.
Last month (December) a Teaching Regulation Agency misconduct hearing decided that Saxton should be banned from the profession indefinitely.
The TRA panel concluded: “There was a strong public interest consideration in respect of the safeguarding and wellbeing of pupils, given the serious findings of making and distributing images of children.”
A spokesperson for Woodford County High School said none of the offences committed by Saxton were committed at or involving any from their school.
The spokesperson said: "At the point at which Mr Saxton was arrested for his crimes in 2023, his access to the school and our IT systems was removed immediately and is no longer employed by the school.
"We have robust safeguarding processes and work hard to ensure that our pupils have always been, and always will be, safe to enjoy their education at Woodford Country High School."
Share