Andrew Simms

Introduction

Andrew Simms was head of engineering at CTC Kingshurst College in Birmingham, where he had taught since December 2014, when a pupil’s disclosure on 17 January 2018 set off investigations by the college, the local authority and the police. He was acquitted of criminal offences after a trial at Birmingham Crown Court — but a Teaching Regulation Agency panel, applying the civil standard, found it proved that he had an inappropriate relationship with a pupil: he received an explicit image of her and engaged in sexual contact and intercourse with her, with her first sexual encounter found proved to have occurred on 29 June 2017, when she was under 16. The panel also found boundary breaches with two other pupils, dishonesty to police, and a breach of an instruction not to discuss the investigation. On 19 July 2022 decision maker Sarah Buxcey banned him from teaching for life with no review and no right to apply for restoration.

Background Information

Simms joined CTC Kingshurst College as a teacher of engineering on 5 December 2014, teaching ages 11 to 18 before his promotion to head of engineering. The disclosure came from a pupil who told another teacher that she and a second pupil had been receiving inappropriate messages from him, and that she knew a third pupil had been having sexual intercourse with him. He was suspended the next day. The police investigation included video-recorded interviews with pupils and an interview under caution with Simms, and resulted in criminal charges; following a trial at Birmingham Crown Court, he was acquitted. The regulatory panel was expressly told to treat the acquittal as irrelevant to its own conclusions — it noted the other investigations only to identify the sources of its evidence, giving no consideration to their outcomes. Simms did not attend the hearing and was not represented; the TRA had written to him seven times across eighteen months, and his solicitors confirmed in October 2021 that they no longer acted for him. The panel therefore proceeded on the basis of a fully disputed case.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Acquitted at trial — but found on the civil standard to have had intercourse with a pupil aged under 16, exchanged explicit images with her, and lied to police about it; banned for life.

Pupil B’s evidence anchored the core findings. She dated her first sexual encounter with Simms to 29 June 2017 — the day of her school prom, a date she said she remembered precisely because of it — first giving that date in a police interview in March 2018, with the college’s investigation notes independently recording June 2017. Simms had advanced at his criminal trial that he could not have been with her that day because gym records placed him elsewhere; he never provided those records to the panel, which was “not persuaded that Mr Simms could not have been with Pupil B, at all that day, on the basis that he made a visit to a gym”. Both parties agreed Pupil B’s date of birth, which established she was under 16 on 29 June 2017. The panel found the explicit-image allegation proved, found intercourse proved, but did not find proved one further alleged encounter on or around 10 January 2018. On the other pupils, it found he asked Pupil A whether she was wearing a bra, called her his “type” and “gorgeous” — with Simms’s own representations conceding the “gorgeous” message and one reading that he “won’t be able to control myself around you”. A related allegation that he had discussed group sexual activity with pupils was not proved, the pupils’ own joking about the topic having muddied the account.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The dishonesty findings compounded the sexual ones: the panel found proved that Simms told police in 2018 he had not previously engaged in sexual contact or intercourse with Pupil B when in fact he had, and that he discussed the investigation with colleagues in 2018 contrary to an instruction not to — both found dishonest. His sole engagement with the process was a written representation accepting the relationship with Pupil B was inappropriate and stating, “I am not making any excuses for my actions whatsoever, I do not ever want to teach again.” The panel found his actions calculated and motivated, noted the absence of any character evidence, and recommended prohibition without a review period. Buxcey agreed, finding the serious nature of the case and the lack of insight or remorse meant no review period was necessary to maintain public confidence, and adding that in view of the seriousness of the allegations found proved he should not be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach.

Current Status

Simms 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, dated 19 July 2022, carries no review period and no entitlement to apply for restoration. It takes effect on service, subject to a right of appeal to the High Court within 28 days. The determination is dated 13 July 2022, following a three-day virtual hearing at which three witnesses gave evidence against him and he gave none. His criminal acquittal stands, and no conviction features in the regulatory findings — the prohibition rests entirely on the panel’s civil-standard findings. The college’s suspension of January 2018 was never lifted by any published reinstatement, and the lifetime ban closes teaching and all regulated child-facing work in England.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The case is one of the clearest demonstrations of the two-track system at work: a jury’s acquittal on the criminal standard did not prevent the regulator finding the same core conduct proved on the balance of probabilities, because the two proceedings ask different questions with different thresholds. The detail mattered — Pupil B’s prom-date recollection, the investigation notes’ independent June 2017 reference, and the unproduced gym records that Simms himself had invoked at trial all combined to defeat his alibi by civil standards. His written statement that he never wanted to teach again was the only mitigation the panel had, and it could not offset findings of intercourse with a child under 16, a lie to police, and breaches of a direct instruction. For schools, the case shows how one pupil’s disclosure to another teacher — not any monitoring system — triggered the suspension, the police investigation and ultimately the lifetime ban.

Sources

• Dept for Education, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Andrew Simms” — source