Andrew Beesley

Introduction

Andrew Beesley is a former teacher at Crosslee Primary School in Manchester who was prohibited from teaching indefinitely, with no entitlement to apply for restoration, after being convicted of three counts of sexual assault against a fellow teacher at the school — an assault he denied from his first police interview to his trial, and which a Teaching Regulation Agency panel accepted as conclusive on the certificate of conviction. Beesley had spent sixteen years at Crosslee and held a senior, leadership-side role; the assaults took place on school premises against a colleague who was relatively new to the profession. Decision maker Alan Meyrick imposed the prohibition order without a review period on 16 November 2022.

Background Information

Beesley joined Crosslee Primary School as a teacher on 1 September 2003 and rose to be a senior member of staff, while his victim was, in the panel’s words, a “relatively inexperienced” teacher — an age and seniority gap the panel treated as deepening the breach of trust. On 11 April 2018 he was accused of sexual assault by that colleague; he was arrested, cautioned and interviewed two days later, and told police the woman was lying and had made the allegation up. On 17 July 2019 a jury at Manchester Crown Court convicted him of three counts of sexual assault on a female, contrary to section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, and on 2 September 2019 he was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment on each count, concurrent, with an indefinite restraining order, a sex offender registration certificate for life, and a £140 victim surcharge. His employment at the school ended on 19 December 2019, and sentencing records noted he might also be placed on the Disclosure and Barring Service barred list.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted at trial after denying the conduct. Beesley admitted the fact of conviction in his signed agreed facts before the TRA, but the underlying verdict came from a jury rejecting his denial; the panel accepted the certificate of conviction as conclusive proof of the offences and the facts they imply.

The regulatory case was built directly on the criminal one: the panel had the certificate of conviction from Manchester Crown Court and found the allegation proved in its entirety, with no exceptional circumstances displacing the conclusive-proof rule. What aggravated the findings in the panel’s hands was the setting and the asymmetry: the incidents took place on school premises, the victim was a teacher at the same school, and Beesley sat well above her in age and seniority, with a leadership role over an inexperienced colleague. The panel called his conduct “extremely serious and completely incompatible with the standards and behaviour expected of any member of the public, let alone a teacher who is placed in a position of trust”, noted that it could have affected the safety of pupils and the public, and observed that a prison sentence was itself the measure of seriousness. On mitigation the record was bare: no evidence was submitted about his history or ability despite sixteen years at the school, nothing attested to high standards or contribution to the sector, and — having denied the assault throughout and been convicted at trial — he showed, in the panel’s finding, no insight and no remorse.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The case was decided at a private virtual meeting on the documents, without a hearing, at Beesley’s own request; neither he nor any representative attended, and no public statement from the school or the victim appears in the decision. The conviction itself was the public event: a custodial sentence, a lifetime restraining order protecting the colleague, and sex offender registration. The TRA’s contribution was the professional coda — a finding that the offences were a relevant offence for regulatory purposes, that prohibition was proportionate and appropriate, and that publication of the findings alone would “unacceptably compromise the public interest considerations present in this case”.

Current Status

Beesley is prohibited from teaching indefinitely with immediate effect from the 16 November 2022 order, and Meyrick’s decision removes his entitlement to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach — there is no review window that could reopen the question. The criminal consequences run concurrently: the twelve-month sentence, the indefinite restraining order and lifelong registration remain in force independent of the TRA outcome. He is barred from teaching in any school, sixth-form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England for the rest of his working life.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Sixteen years of service ended not with a misconduct investigation into classroom conduct but with a criminal conviction for assaulting a colleague — and the regulator’s files treat the two settings as one: the panel expressly found the school-premises location and the staff-room hierarchy aggravating, extending the safeguarding logic beyond pupils to the adults a school employs. The no-restoration decision tracks the Advice’s treatment of sexual assault convictions, especially where the teacher contested the facts and lost; insight declared only after a jury verdict carries no weight. The published decision now sits in the public record alongside the Crown Court outcome, the pair of them foreclosing any route back into a profession he entered in 2003.

Sources

• Teaching Regulation Agency (GOV.UK), “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Andrew Beesley,” Nov 16, 2022 — source