Teacher at Worcestershire school accidentally showed sex scene in DVD

May 13 2009 by Jane Tyler, Birmingham Post

He had watched Ministry of Sound videos in the classroom, looked at pictures of naked women on the internet while supervising pupils in detention and bought tennis and squash racquets on eBay in work time.

But in January 2007, two boys aged 11 and 12 went to the deputy head teacher saying they had seen a sex scene on a DVD about the rainforest Mr Collings had shown them.

Mrs Taylor said Mr Collings was suspended the same day and an investigation launched.

This found that he had taped an episode of Planet Earth and transferred it onto DVD, unaware a short section of a previous recording of CSI was still there.

During his disciplinary hearing Mr Collings insisted it was not a porn film but had in fact come from CSI.

“I have never watched CSI and was surprised,” Mrs Taylor said. “I didn’t think it would have shown a man and woman naked in an office having sex.

“This was a mistake, there was no intention to show it to pupils.”

She said the pupils concerned had been ‘‘embarrassed, distressed and tearful’’.

Because he was on a final written warning Mr Collings was dismissed and the other members of staff wrote a letter of support.

Mr Faux said: “He was a long-serving teacher at the school, but on the other hand he appears to be someone who has misunderstood the school’s ethos of the appropriateness of creating an inappropriate sexually charged atmosphere in the classroom.”

The panel said they accepted Mr Collings’ assertion that it was a mistake, but that he had told the pupils not to mention the matter to their parents.