Kim Connor

Introduction

Kim Connor is a former teacher at St Monica’s RC High School in Greater Manchester who was prohibited from teaching indefinitely, with no review period and no right to restoration, after six convictions for abuse-of-trust sexual offences against a female pupil aged 13 to 17. On 5 March 2020 she was convicted at Minshull Street Crown Court of three counts of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust and three counts of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, and on 7 July 2020 she was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment and placed on the sex offenders register for ten years. On 19 October 2022, decision maker Alan Meyrick banned her from the profession on behalf of the Secretary of State.

Background Information

The offences were committed between 30 September and 31 December 2004 — early in her career — while she held a position of trust over the victim, and the jury found she did not believe the girl was over 18. The convictions came fifteen years later, in March 2020, after a prosecution under the Sexual Offences Act 2003’s abuse-of-trust provisions. The TRA’s notice of proceedings, dated 2 August 2022, put the six convictions before a professional conduct panel as a single allegation of a relevant offence.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted of six abuse-of-trust offences. Connor initially denied the allegations but admitted the facts of all six convictions in her response of 12 May 2022 and a statement of agreed facts signed on 4 October 2022; she was absent from the hearing and the case proceeded without her.

The panel heard no oral evidence and decided on the documents: the certificate of conviction recording the six counts — three of sexual activity with a female aged 13 to 17 by a person in a position of trust who did not believe the victim was over 18, and three of causing or inciting the same — and her signed admissions that the convictions were for relevant offences. The sentencing court had already imposed nine months’ imprisonment, served concurrently across the counts, and a ten-year registration requirement. The panel found the abuse-of-trust findings “particularly serious” and noted her behaviour could have had an impact on the safety and security of pupils. With no evidence of insight or remorse before it, the panel determined there was a risk of repetition and therefore a continued risk to pupils.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The hearing on 14 October 2022 went ahead in her absence; the panel ruled the absence voluntary, and she had not sought an adjournment. The TRA’s correspondence with her — admitted into the bundle despite a service defect — evidenced her understanding that the case would proceed and her agreement to amendments. No evidence was submitted of her history or ability as a teacher, and none demonstrating exceptionally high standards of personal or professional conduct. Meyrick wrote that he was “particularly mindful of the finding of abuse of position of trust in this case and the impact that such a finding has on the reputation of the profession”.

Current Status

Connor 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 carries no review period, and the decision states that in view of the seriousness of the offences she “shall not be entitled to apply for restoration of her eligibility to teach”. Her ten-year sex offenders registration, imposed in July 2020, runs on the criminal side independently of the ban.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The case shows the regulator’s no-review tier operating on the gravity of the convictions alone: a fifteen-year-old offence history, admissions only after denial, absence from the hearing, and a lifetime bar with the restoration route closed. It is also one of the decisions in which the teacher and the abused pupil were both female — the six counts concern a 13-to-17-year-old girl and a teacher who did not believe her to be 18 — under the same abuse-of-trust provisions more often cited in cases of male teachers. The published findings permanently record the six convictions against her name for any employer searching the register.

Sources

• Teaching Regulation Agency (GOV.UK), “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Ms Kim Connor,” October 2022 — source