Andrew Parkinson
Introduction
Andrew Parkinson was director of learning for mathematics and technology at Batley Grammar School — a post described at his hearing as carrying influence over students and staff — until a November 2018 car journey ended his career. A colleague alleged that during the ride home he sexually touched her without her consent, and although police later took no further action, a Teaching Regulation Agency panel hearing her live evidence found the allegation proved on the balance of probabilities in May 2022. Parkinson, who denied the events entirely and did not attend the hearing, had resigned before the school could hold its own disciplinary hearing, and the regulator concluded he had shown no insight or remorse. On 17 May 2022 decision maker Alan Meyrick prohibited him from teaching for life, with no review period and no right to apply for restoration. He is a different person from Karyann Parkinson and Susan Parkinson, other former teachers on this site who share his surname.
Background Information
Parkinson joined Batley Grammar School on 1 September 2017 as director of learning for mathematics and technology. On 2 November 2018, after a work-related social event, a colleague — Colleague A in the published decision — accepted a lift home in a car in which Parkinson insisted on sitting in the back seat. She alleged that earlier that evening he had told her she had “a nice set of boobs” and squeezed her bottom, and that during the journey he put his arm around her, placed her legs on his lap, touched her breasts over and then inside her dress, ran his hand up her legs and thighs, and kissed the side of her face, while she froze. She referred the matter to police on 4 November 2018; he was questioned under caution and bailed pending investigation, and the police informed the school and the local authority designated officer the next day. The school’s investigation fed into a LADO meeting on 19 December 2018 which agreed the allegation was substantiated on the balance of probabilities.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Barred for life after a regulatory panel found he sexually touched a colleague without consent in a car after a work event; police took no further action and he denies everything.
Parkinson resigned on 11 January 2019, ahead of the disciplinary hearing the school had been advised to hold. The criminal dimension did not follow him into court: the police decided to take no further action, a fact confirmed to the panel by letters from the police and the DBS, so no charge or conviction ever issued. The regulatory case went ahead regardless, at an in-person hearing on 9 to 11 May 2022 which Parkinson chose not to attend and at which he was not represented. Colleague A gave oral evidence; the panel found her “a credible and compelling witness” impressed by the clarity of her answers, and noted that the man she had considered an approachable “work dad” had, on her account, squeezed her bottom hours before the journey and told her she had “a nice set of boobs”. His own account — that he drank “quite a bit”, climbed into the back seat to sleep, placed her legs on his only because the car was cramped, remembered nothing until the journey’s end, and called her afterwards only to check she was all right — had never been tested in cross-examination, because he resigned before the school’s disciplinary process could do so.
The panel accepted the presenting officer’s submission that this was not a case of crossed wires or misunderstood consent, since Parkinson denied the events happened at all. Weighing her evidence against his untested account, it found proved that on or around 2 November 2018 he engaged in sexual contact with Colleague A without her consent: touching her breasts over her dress, touching her beneath it, and kissing the side of her face. The panel was careful to record that denial of misconduct is not an absolute bar to a finding of insight, but found no evidence that Parkinson had demonstrated any. The allegations remain findings of a civil standard panel on an unadjudicated criminal background — he was never charged — and the page states that posture plainly.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The panel recommended prohibition with immediate effect and no review period. Meyrick adopted both, citing the serious nature of the sexual assault finding and the panel’s observation that Parkinson, maintaining complete innocence, had shown no insight or remorse. A prohibition order would, in the panel’s assessment, protect colleagues and pupils from the risk of repetition while affirming that conduct toward staff — not only pupils — is within the regulator’s reach. The school had referred the case to the Teaching Regulation Agency in line with the LADO advice that a resignation ahead of a disciplinary hearing must still be reported, and the DBS letters placed the finding on his record alongside the bar.
Current Status
Andrew Parkinson is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. The order carries no review period, and he is not entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach. He has not publicly commented on the finding, no criminal proceedings were ever brought, and the panel’s finding — like all such findings — was made to the civil standard on the balance of probabilities. His resignation in January 2019 preceded the disciplinary hearing that would have tested the school’s own gross-misconduct case.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Eighteen months at Batley Grammar School ended a career that witnesses described as well respected and influential, and the case’s afterlife belongs entirely to the regulatory system: no prosecution, no public statement from him, and a lifetime bar resting on one colleague’s testimony found credible against an account that was never cross-examined. It stands as an example that resignation does not extinguish a misconduct case — the LADO advice told the school as much in December 2018 — and that a police decision to take no further action forecloses the criminal route without touching the professional one. For teachers’ unions and safeguarding officers alike, the precedent is that colleague-on-colleague allegations travel the full distance to prohibition when the evidence is accepted.