Christopher Dunsmore
Introduction
Christopher Dunsmore was a teacher at Colfe’s School in London for a decade before a chat-room conversation in August 2017 ended his career. According to the police case file summary read by his regulatory panel, he responded to a profile posing as a fourteen-year-old girl, introduced himself by his first name, said he was thirty-six years old and a teacher, and let a sexualised conversation develop that ended in him masturbating. He was arrested by the Metropolitan Police on 5 September 2017, admitted the offence in a third police interview, and then — before he was even sentenced for it — went on to commit a similar further offence in 2019. He pleaded guilty at Woolwich Crown Court to both on 9 November 2020, receiving a suspended sentence, and on 4 February 2022 decision maker John Knowles banned him from teaching for life, with no review and no right of restoration, citing the risk of repetition and the serious sexual nature of the convictions.
Background Information
Dunsmore commenced employment as a teacher at Colfe’s School on 30 August 2007 and remained there for ten years, the period the panel noted when weighing his case, though it recorded that no evidence of his teaching proficiency had been provided. On 5 September 2017 he was arrested by the Metropolitan Police over the 21 August 2017 chat-room conversation. The panel’s account of that offence comes from the police case file summary: the other participant posed as, and introduced herself as, a fourteen-year-old female; Dunsmore gave his first name, stated his age as thirty-six and identified himself as a teacher; a sexualised conversation followed, culminating in him masturbating and ejaculating. The conviction was for attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child, contrary to section 15A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 — the “child” being an online decoy, though nothing in the decision connects her to his school.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Convicted of attempting sexual communication with a decoy he believed was 14 — and of a second, similar offence committed while on bail for the first; banned for life with no review.
The sequence that decided the case was disclosed at the hearing: after his third police interview, in which he admitted the 21 August 2017 offence, and before his conviction and sentencing for it, Dunsmore committed a similar further offence in 2019, for which he was also convicted and sentenced on 9 November 2020. The panel found this aggravating fact decisive for finality — a teacher who reoffended in the same pattern while the first case was pending had answered the risk question himself. On 9 November 2020 Woolwich Crown Court sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment suspended for twenty-four months with a thirty-day programme requirement, ten years on the sex offenders register, and a sexual harm prevention order of indefinite duration. In his response to the notice of hearing he admitted both the fact of the offence and that it was a relevant conviction, and he did not attend the hearing on 31 January 2022.
The panel treated the certificate of conviction as conclusive of the facts and turned to sanction. It weighed in his favour the steps he had taken to address his offending that the court had recognised in sentencing, and the ten-year employment at Colfe’s, but found the aggravating structure overwhelming: the offence was committed against what he believed was a fourteen-year-old while he was a serving teacher who identified himself as such, and he had reoffended in the same pattern before sentence. The panel recommended prohibition with immediate effect and no review period. Knowles agreed, finding that “the panel’s comments in relation to the risk of repetition and the serious sexual nature of the conviction” meant no review period could maintain public confidence, and in view of the seriousness he removed any entitlement to apply for restoration.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The case closed without any public statement from Dunsmore, from Colfe’s School, or from the police beyond the case file the panel read; the regulatory outcome itself, published on GOV.UK, is the public record. The suspended sentence means the convictions carry no custodial time served, but the ten-year registration requirement, the indefinite sexual harm prevention order and the lifetime teaching ban form three overlapping public-protection structures that outlast them. The panel’s hearing was conducted on the papers and his written admissions, with no witnesses called and no contested evidence, little more than a year after his plea.
Current Status
Christopher Dunsmore is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. The prohibition carries no review period and no entitlement to apply for restoration. He remains subject to sex offender registration for ten years from the November 2020 sentencing and to a sexual harm prevention order until further order, and his two convictions — one from 2017, one from 2019, sentenced together — stand on his criminal record. The decision does not record the date or manner of the end of his employment at Colfe’s School.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Two facts about this case carry its weight: a teacher who told a stranger he believed was fourteen that he was a teacher, and a man who committed the second offence after admitting the first to police. The first made his profession an aggravating feature of the criminal case; the second converted what might have been argued as an isolated lapse into the pattern the regulator treats as permanently unsafe. The suspension of his prison term will read to some as lenity, but the register, the prevention order and the lifetime ban mean the state’s answer to the question of his future around children was settled across three separate systems at once.