Former Hampshire teacher banned indefinitely after using Just Teens chat room on school laptop contacting underage girls

Daniel Jackson, a former chemistry teacher at St Mary's Independent School, Southampton, has been banned after being caught using his work computer.

A professional conduct panel of the Teaching Regulation Agency found that he was guilty of ‘unacceptable professional conduct and conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute.’

This comes after the school’s e-safe monitoring system detected, in November 2019, that Jackson’s work laptop had accessed Just Teens, where it was then discovered that he had been engaging in sexual communications.

The school took screenshots of these conversations within the chat rooms and gave them to the police who then seized a number of electronic devices in his possession including his laptop, mobile phone and several electronic storage devices.

He was interviewed by the police on November 8, 2019, but he did not provide a comment, and he was released without charge or bail pending further investigation.

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On November 26, 2019, Jackson resigned from his post as a teacher at the school stating that it was the right time for him to pursue a different career.

The police investigation ended in late summer 2020 after they forensically examined his devices and found no evidence of further offending.

However, Jackson was considered a potential risk to children and police issued him with a C5 Notice, which indicates that the police have concerns about a person’s sexual behaviour.

He admitted that between November 6 and 8, he engaged in inappropriate conversations with a student in a chat room, and that the conversations that took place contained a number of sexually explicit conversations with other chatroom users, which included references to sexual interactions with children.

He also admitted that it was sexually motivated and he was intending to pursue a sexual relationship or sexual gratification.

The panel ‘was satisfied that the conduct of Mr Jackson amounted to misconduct of a serious nature which fell significantly short of the standards expected of the profession’ and he has been banned from teaching indefinitely.

St Mary’s Independent School, formerly St Mary’s College, closed in 2020.