Daniel Hammond

Introduction

Daniel Hammond, a qualified primary teacher at Sir Francis Hill Primary School in Lincoln, was banned from teaching for life in August 2024 after a Teaching Regulation Agency panel confirmed his conviction for engaging in sexual communication with a child and found further proven incidents of unwanted physical and social contact with two adult colleagues. Hammond, who received a six-month suspended prison sentence for the offence in 2021, admitted the conviction; the panel found the remaining allegations proved on the evidence, and decision maker Sarah Buxcey prohibited him indefinitely with no review period and no entitlement to apply for restoration.

Background Information

Concerns about Hammond accumulated at Sir Francis Hill Primary through 2019. On 11 June 2019 the school made a referral to the Local Authority Designated Officer; on 25 June 2019 staff separately reported that they had received unwanted approaches from him via social media; and on 3 September 2019 the school was notified that he had allegedly sent sexual messages to a child, anonymised in the published decision as Child 1. The criminal process followed: Hammond was convicted on 12 March 2021 of engaging in sexual communication with Child 1 between 1 May and 30 June 2019, contrary to section 15A(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, and received six months’ imprisonment suspended for 24 months with a rehabilitation activity requirement. He signed the notice of referral admitting the conviction in November 2022.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted of sexual communication with a child. A suspended sentence for sexually communicating with a child, plus proven unwanted contact with two adult colleagues, led the regulator to a lifetime ban; Hammond admitted the conviction but the panel found the rest proved against him.

The panel accepted the certificate of conviction as conclusive proof that Hammond’s offence — sexual communication with a child over a two-month span in 2019 — was a relevant offence, and he had admitted it outright. Around it the panel found two further strands proved. First, that on 19 October 2018 he touched Individual A — a student on a work placement at the school, an adult at the time — on the bottom without her consent; a related November 2018 Snapchat message inviting her to meet up and cuddle was found proved but the panel declined to find it sexually motivated for want of evidence. Second, that in or around May 2019 he sent unwanted Facebook Messenger approaches to Individual D, telling her he had been looking at her profile and asking whether she was single; the panel found the approaches formed one course of conduct and that she had shown no interest in anything beyond work contact.

The panel was plainly troubled by the professional dynamic, reserving part of the hearing to private session to protect Child 1’s identity. Hammond, who requested a hearing-free determination of his case in 2022, saw the process adjourned and reconvened before the panel delivered findings on 13 August 2024. It found his conduct breached the Teachers’ Standards and brought the profession into disrepute; on the sexual communication conviction it noted the Advice treats any sexual offending against children as categorically serious. He gave no evidence and offered no mitigation beyond his admissions.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel found no character statements in the bundle attesting to Hammond’s history or teaching ability, and accepted the presenting officer’s submission that the founded allegations showed a pattern of misjudged behaviour even allowing for a difficult period in his life. It held that public confidence could not tolerate the conduct going unsanctioned and recommended prohibition with immediate effect and no review period; Buxcey agreed on 14 August 2024 and also withdrew any entitlement to apply for restoration. The case drew no press coverage beyond the regulator’s own publication.

Current Status

Hammond 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 of 14 August 2024 took effect on service, has no review period, and with restoration rights withdrawn his only legal avenue is a High Court appeal within 28 days of notice. His criminal conviction and suspended sentence stand as the court’s own disposition, and the sexual offence against a child remains on his record. He has published no statement about the case.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The case stacks the regulator’s two tracks: a criminal conviction for sexual communication with a child, which alone carried a lifetime bar under the Advice’s categorically serious list, and an independent pattern of unwanted conduct toward adult colleagues that forecloses any argument of one-off aberration. For the school, the timeline — LADO referral in June 2019, staff complaints within weeks, notification of the child contact by September — shows a reporting chain that worked, even as the criminal process and the regulatory tail took five more years to conclude. Hammond’s classroom career in England is permanently over.

Sources

• Dept for Education, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Daniel Hammond” — source