Teacher banned from the classroom after storing pornography on his work email account

A teacher has been banned from the classroom indefinitely after he was caught storing pornography on his work email account.

William Schaper, 49, was sacked from the independent, co-educational Eltham College Junior School in London after the school’s internet monitoring system found inappropriate material he had accessed in January last year.

A subsequent investigation found Mr Schaper, who started working at the school in 2003, had accessed pornographic websites on a work device on multiple occasions during school hours.

His school Outlook 365 account had also been used to store pornographic and sexual material from several different websites since 2018.

A misconduct panel heard how he tried to hide the pornography by manually deleting his browser internet history after taking advice from an unidentified individual on how to do this.

Mr Schaper initially denied the allegations during a meeting on 17 January last year, saying he “wouldn’t do this sort of thing”, before partially admitting it to the acting headteacher over WhatsApp that same evening.

He said no children ever walked in on him while he was accessing the material, a claim the panel did not dispute.

“The panel however did not consider that this detracted from the potential safeguarding risks associated with accessing material of a pornographic nature on a school device and within the education environment,” it noted in a report.

“Mr Schaper had accessed highly inappropriate material via a school device and within the school environment and had then been dishonest about this fact.

“For these reasons, the panel was satisfied that the conduct of Mr Schaper amounted to misconduct of a serious nature which fell significantly short of the standards expected of the profession.

“Accordingly, the panel was satisfied that Mr Schaper was guilty of unacceptable professional conduct.”

The panel received a letter from Mr Schaper, in which he indicated that he was experiencing difficult personal circumstances at the time.

It said it did not consider that the circumstances “significantly affected the potential for the conduct”.

Mr Schaper has been banned from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England.

He can apply for his prohibition order to be set aside on 24 September 2028.