Anu Tester

Introduction

Anu Tester was a philosophy teacher at Wynstones School, an independent Steiner Waldorf school in Gloucestershire for children aged three to nineteen. On 15 August 2019 — A Level results day — he accompanied four pupils to Gloucester to celebrate, drank with them until he was inebriated, then went on to Bristol alone with Pupil A, where the evening ended in prolonged kissing, a hotel room shared for the purpose of sexual activity, and sexual contact including grinding against her and touching her under her clothes while both were clothed. Tester admitted everything: the boundary failures, the drinking, the sexual contact, his romantic attraction to Pupil A, and a series of lies told to colleagues to conceal the arrangement. At his own request the case was decided without a hearing on a signed statement of agreed facts, and on 23 February 2021 decision maker Alan Meyrick banned him from teaching for life with no review period and no entitlement to apply for restoration.

Background Information

Tester taught philosophy at Wynstones during the 2018/19 academic year, during which he grew close to Pupil A. In the summer term of 2019 two of Pupil A’s friends sought him out on the final day of term and told him they believed Pupil A was attracted to him — information he accepted receiving while aware of his own attraction to her. He reported to colleagues, informally, that Pupil A was “obsessed” with another individual and that he feared those feelings might transfer to him, but he never recorded a formal safeguarding concern and never disclosed his own interest. That concealment mattered: he still carried professional responsibilities toward Pupil A, including on results day itself. When the events of 15 August 2019 later came to light, Tester told police in interview that he had lied to other teachers to avoid negative staff opinion about meeting pupils outside school, and the panel found he had told a series of partial truths and lies to colleagues and to Pupil A to manufacture a plausible reason for being in Gloucester that day.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Results-day drinking with pupils, then a Bristol hotel and sexual contact with Pupil A; safeguarding information withheld; admitted in full; banned for life with no review. Tester signed a statement of agreed facts admitting every allegation, including sexual motivation and dishonesty.

The day began conventionally: after results were announced, Tester celebrated with Pupils A, B, C and D at venues in Gloucester where alcohol was served. By his own admission he drank to the point of inebriation, his decision-making impaired, and then he and Pupil A continued to Bristol alone to visit further venues. There they kissed repeatedly and intimately, went to a hotel for the purpose of sexual activity, and — while clothed — he engaged in grinding against Pupil A and touched her with his hand under her clothing; they shared the bed, and the next morning he invited her to share a shower. He admitted he was romantically attracted to her and that the contact was sexual and sexually motivated. He also admitted the concealment: an email to Pupil A sent with a security setting that prevented forwarding and auto-expired within a week, which he accepted was an attempt to disguise the relationship and the sexual contact. Pupil A’s contemporaneous account recorded that they had both been “very drunk”. The panel found that no education professional should engage in a sexual relationship with a pupil in this manner, whether or not the school year had ended.

Public Reaction and Consequences

Because Tester admitted the facts and that they amounted to unacceptable professional conduct and conduct bringing the profession into disrepute, the contested question was sanction. The panel accepted mitigation — an otherwise good record, full engagement with the regulator, evidence of a particularly difficult period in his life, and some evidence he had sought counselling — but found the aggravating features decisive: deliberate and partly premeditated actions, alcohol’s role, the abuse of a position of trust he acknowledged, and his own admissions that Pupil A might not have appreciated the power imbalance between them. His insight was found very limited: his written submissions focused on his personal circumstances, blamed external factors, and did not say what lessons he had learned or what he would do differently. Remorse evidence was limited and self-focused. The panel found the behaviour “at the serious end of the possible spectrum”, was not satisfied there was no risk of repetition, and recommended prohibition with immediate effect and no review period.

Current Status

Tester is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. Meyrick accepted the panel’s no-review recommendation on 23 February 2021, citing the dishonesty and lack of integrity, the abuse of trust, the sexual activity, and the lack of appropriate remorse or insight, and decided Tester shall not be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach. The order took effect on service, with a right of appeal to the High Court within 28 days. The determination is dated 19 February 2021. The decision records a police interview with Avon and Somerset Police but no charge or conviction arising from the events; the regulatory findings rest on his own admissions.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The case is one of the clearest illustrations in the TRA record of how a no-hearing admission converts into a maximum sanction: Tester’s own signed statement of agreed facts supplied every element — the sexual contact, the motivation, the dishonesty, the withheld safeguarding information — leaving only the proportionality question, which his partial self-focus then lost. It also shows the regulator treating results day and the weeks after as inside the teacher-pupil relationship rather than outside it: the panel held expressly that it did not matter whether Pupil A had formally come off the school roll. The concealment mechanics — an expiring, non-forwardable email — marked the dishonesty as deliberate rather than impulsive, and the withheld attraction meant colleagues were prevented from safeguarding Pupil A in advance. For Tester, full admissions bought procedural efficiency but not mitigation: the no-review, no-restoration tier applied regardless.

Sources

• Dept for Education, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Anu Tester” — source