Adam McCullagh

Introduction

Adam McCullagh is a former teacher at Haydock High School in Merseyside who was prohibited from teaching indefinitely in December 2023 after a Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel found that, between August and September 2020, he messaged a student through a personal Instagram account and sent her Snapchat messages of a sexual nature, and that the conduct was sexually motivated. The messages included telling the student “I know one way I’d like to shut you up” and adding that he had told her he was going to “shut you up but in a rude way”. Decision maker Marc Cavey imposed a lifetime ban with no right to apply for restoration.

Background Information

McCullagh taught at Haydock High School. Between 21 August 2020 and 26 September 2020 he messaged Student 1 via a personal Instagram account, sent her messages set out in the panel’s Schedule A, and sent Snapchat messages containing the text or images described in Schedule B. The school and a parent raised concerns about him, the school made a referral to the LADO, and he was suspended pending investigation. The police referred the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service; the outcome of that referral was no further action, leaving the TRA to decide the professional case on the panel’s own findings.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Adjudicated vs. alleged. The panel found allegations 1(a), 1(b) and 1(c) proved on the evidence before it and expressly found the conduct sexually motivated, applying the section 78 Sexual Offences Act 2003 threshold and authorities including Sait and Basson.

Schedule A recorded the messages themselves: “I’D SAY THAT I’D GOT OUT AND CELEBRATE WITH YOU BUT THAT MIGHT BE A BIT WEIRD HAHA X” and “I KNOW ONE WAY I’D LIKE TO SHUT YOU UP”, followed by “I TOLD YOU I WAS GOING TO SHUT YOU UP BUT IN A RUDE WAY”. The panel found the conduct amounted to “serious sexual misconduct involving an abuse of trust and his position and that this had the potential to result in harm to Student 1”, directed at a recent former student. McCullagh was suspended from duty during the investigation and resigned from the school. The panel found the sexually motivated element proved, weighting the messaging and its content against the professional position he held.

Public Reaction and Consequences

No press coverage attaches to the case; the published decision is the public record. The consequences ran through the school’s safeguarding machinery — the parental complaint, the LADO referral, the suspension — through a police investigation that ended in no further action, and finally to the TRA, where the professional standard applied regardless of the criminal outcome. The panel recommended a prohibition order with no review period, citing the Advice’s treatment of serious sexual misconduct involving abuse of professional position. Cavey noted the lack of evidence of either insight or remorse as a factor requiring the no-review outcome.

Current Status

McCullagh is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. The decision maker further decided that he shall not be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach. The determination is dated 13 December 2023, with Cavey’s order dated 18 December 2023, effective from service. He retains a right of appeal to the King’s Bench Division of the High Court within 28 days of notice of the order; the published record shows none was filed.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The case illustrates that the regulator’s sexually-motivated finding does not depend on a criminal conviction: with the CPS declining the case, the TRA panel made its own findings on the same messages and imposed the profession’s severest sanction. The “shut you up” exchanges, trivial as bravado, were read as sexual propositions from a teacher to a student who had just left his charge, and the abuse-of-trust framing meant the ban carried no review period even at the first instance. McCullagh’s resignation during the school investigation did not blunt the outcome — the published decision now stands as the controlling public record of the episode.

Sources

• Dept for Education, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Adam McCullagh” — source