Christopher Glover

Introduction

Christopher Glover taught at the Newbridge Short Stay School in Worcester, a school for pupils excluded or otherwise unable to attend mainstream education. In May 2023 he was prohibited from teaching indefinitely after a Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel accepted his convictions from Dudley Magistrates’ Court one year earlier: one offence of voyeurism for secretly recording an adult, three offences of making indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children, and three counts of distributing them. Police found devices in his school locker, including a secret recording device, though the images themselves were not of pupils. The case proceeded on his signed statement of agreed facts, considered without a hearing at his own request. Decision maker Alan Meyrick imposed a lifetime ban with no review period and no right to apply for restoration.

Background Information

Glover worked at the Newbridge Short Stay School in Worcester. On 5 April 2022, at Dudley Magistrates’ Court, he was convicted of voyeurism — recording a private act, contrary to section 67 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 — and of three counts of making indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children, contrary to section 1 of the Protection of Children Act 1978, covering 59 Category A images or videos, 53 Category B and 92 Category C, plus three counts of distributing indecent images of children covering three Category A videos, four Category B videos and one Category C image. At the sentencing hearing, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard the distribution ran from October 2020 to April 2021. The sentence was imprisonment, suspended. At the TRA stage the allegations were admitted and supported by the certificate of conviction.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted and admitted. Glover admitted the convictions of relevant offences in a signed statement of agreed facts; the panel accepted the certificate of conviction as conclusive proof and considered the case without a hearing at his request.

The panel examined the sentencing transcript, which showed the indecent images were of children as young as 8 — children who would have been of school age — and that a number of devices had been found in Glover’s locker at the school, including what was referred to as a secret recording device. The recording device, the panel noted, had been used in his personal life outside education to record an adult in a state of undress without consent, conduct the transcript linked to the distress of the person recorded. The panel found his actions deliberate and calculated: he had purchased the video recording device to record the adult without their knowledge and had downloaded a security application in which he kept images for trading, including sexual images of children. He admitted to viewing indecent images of children “for years”, saying that over time his “boundaries got lower”, and told the panel’s evidence he kept deleting the sharing app because he felt “disgusted” — but reinstalled it and continued viewing. The panel found he had deliberately concealed his actions, though it acknowledged he was open with police at the first opportunity.

On sanction, the panel found sexual misconduct in his conduct but no exploitation of professional trust, since the offending was unconnected to his pupils. It weighed his guilty plea, his full cooperation with the police from his first interview, the limited distribution window, and mitigation at sentencing that he had put “building blocks” in place and engaged with courses to reduce reoffending — but concluded the courses did not address the public-confidence interest, and that no review period could be justified for conduct combining child image offences with covert recording. Meyrick agreed, and declined to allow any application for restoration.

Public Reaction and Consequences

No press coverage attaches to the case; the published decision is the public record. The criminal consequences — the conviction, the suspended prison sentence and the registration requirements that followed — were already in place before the TRA case began. The school connection emerged in the prosecution evidence: the locker, on school premises, held the recording device among other items, tying the investigation physically to his workplace even though the recorded adult was not associated with the school. The panel noted it received no evidence of Glover’s teaching proficiency and no character references from colleagues, leaving the prohibition unopposed by any testimonial material. The agreed-facts route closed the case within a single virtual meeting on 9 May 2023.

Current Status

Glover is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. The decision maker further decided that he shall not be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach. The determination is dated 9 May 2023, with Meyrick’s order dated 15 May 2023, effective from service. He retains a right of appeal to the King’s Bench Division of the High Court within 28 days of notice of the order; the published record shows none was filed.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Glover’s case illustrates how the Advice’s category for indecent-image offences operates: any activity involving making, possessing or distributing indecent images of children, even one-off incidents and even unconnected to the teacher’s own pupils, is likely to be a relevant offence that ends a career. The aggravating features here — trading through an encrypted application, a covert recording habit, a multi-year viewing history, and a device cache kept at school — foreclosed the mitigation that his cooperation and courses might otherwise have earned. The finding that he deliberately concealed his actions, despite the early police admission, carried the dishonesty factor the panel lists among the markers of incompatibility with teaching. With no review and no restoration, the suspended sentence’s relative leniency in the criminal courts found its professional counterpart in the strictest sanction the regulator can impose.

Sources

• Dept for Education, “Professional conduct panel meeting outcome: Mr Christopher Glover” — source