Andrew Batterham

Introduction

Andrew Batterham is a former English and Games teacher at The Leys School, a co-educational independent school in Cambridge, who was prohibited from teaching indefinitely, with no right to apply for restoration, after a Teaching Regulation Agency panel found that between 2000 and 2005 he conducted sexual relationships with two pupils — sending sexual texts, meeting them alone in his car on school grounds, giving them alcohol at pubs and nightclubs, kissing them, and taking them to his home where sexual activity took place. Batterham denied everything, told the school’s own investigation he was “outraged” by the allegations, gave a no-comment police interview, and refused to attend his regulatory hearing; the panel found all allegations proved on the live evidence of his two former pupils. Decision maker Alan Meyrick imposed the ban without a review period on 28 February 2023.

Background Information

Batterham worked at The Leys from 1994, teaching English and Games from 1997 and coaching hockey; he also ran “Unplugged”, a termly acoustic music evening where pupils played cover songs — the setting in which he first grew close to Pupil A. Pupil A’s disclosure came only in 2017, years after she left, and led to a police investigation; in January 2019 she gave a formal interview, and the police took no further action, meaning no charge was ever brought and the criminal allegation remains untested. On LADO advice the school ran its own investigation, and Batterham agreed to resign on 27 March 2020; the school referred him to the TRA that May. In his December 2019 interview with the school he denied all conduct toward both pupils except a single car journey home; to the police he said nothing at all.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Denied in writing, proved on live evidence. Batterham put the TRA to proof and did not attend. The panel heard both former pupils give evidence and found the relationships proved in full without needing to draw an adverse inference from his absence. These are civil-standard findings; the parallel criminal investigation ended without charge.

The panel’s findings trace the same technique with both girls. With Pupil A: texts that turned personal and sexual — she told the panel the messages made her feel “both special and uncomfortable at the same time” — weekly meetings in his car parked by the staff room at around 6pm, a pub encounter in her school years where a parent confronted him over an underage pupil, a restaurant dinner where he bought her wine, a long kiss in the drama studio after an Unplugged rehearsal, a nightclub where he dared her to put her hand down his trousers, and three visits to his home in Hilton, one lasting six or seven hours over the film Casablanca, with wine, kissing and sexual activity before he dropped her at the end of her road so no one would see. With Pupil B, two years below: a memorial bench for a schoolmate who died of cancer became the pretext for exchanging numbers, then a text commenting that her “breasts look amazing under that tight shirt” — words the panel recorded to that effect — car meetings once or twice a week, a kiss, and a summer 2005 visit to his house ending with sexual contact and his request that she have sex with him, which she laughed off and left. The panel found the sexual nature and motivation proved, noted the parallel playbook across both girls, and described conduct that “overstepped the boundary by a wide, if not the widest, mark”.

Public Reaction and Consequences

Batterham’s engagement with the process that did exist was minimal: to the TRA he wrote in November 2020, “I have nothing to add other than to say that this whole process has been unreasonably stressful and protracted. I just want to move on now”, and later answered a service query with the single word “Received.” At the February 2023 hearing he was neither present nor represented; the panel ruled his absence voluntary and heard three witnesses over four days. Its published conclusion was that he showed “a willing disregard to the well-being of pupils in his care, who he knew to be vulnerable, which he exploited for his own sexual gratification”, and the decision maker framed the findings as “repeated incidents of sexual misconduct and with more than one pupil”.

Current Status

Batterham is prohibited from teaching indefinitely with immediate effect from the 28 February 2023 order, and the decision maker decided he shall not be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach — there is no review date and no application that could lift the bar. The police decision to take no further action stands as the criminal disposition; the TRA findings carry the professional consequences, and he remains barred from any school, sixth-form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England.

Impact on Their Career/Life

A career begun in 1994 ended with a negotiated resignation in 2020 and a lifetime ban in 2023 — the three-year gap between them spent, on the record, in silence. The case shows the regulator operating independently of the criminal process: with the police investigation closed and no charge possible, the TRA panel still adjudicated the allegations on witness evidence and imposed the profession’s terminal sanction, expressly finding the pupil relationships proved. For The Leys, the decision documents both the 2017 disclosure and the school’s internal referral chain; for the two former pupils, it is the first public, on-the-record adjudication of what they described.

Sources

• Teaching Regulation Agency (GOV.UK), “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Andrew Batterham,” Feb 28, 2023 — source