Liam Shakles

Introduction

Liam Shakles was an unqualified teacher at Ridgeway Academy in Redditch who had held his post for roughly two and a half weeks when he was arrested on suspicion of possessing indecent photographs of children and attempting to engage in sexual communications with a child. Arrested on 19 September 2019, he had his employment terminated on 4 October 2019, and on 4 March 2021 he was convicted and sentenced at Worcester Crown Court to a total of fourteen months’ imprisonment for six counts of making an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child and one count of attempting to engage in sexual communications with a child. He admitted the regulatory allegations against him in full, and on 21 July 2022 decision maker Alan Meyrick banned him from teaching for life, with no review period and no entitlement ever to apply for restoration.

Background Information

Shakles joined Ridgeway Academy as an unqualified teacher on 2 September 2019. Seventeen days later police arrested him; the conduct underlying the charges long predated the job, with the indecent-material counts spanning 23 February 2015 to 17 September 2019 and the attempted-communication offence dated between 4 and 8 July 2019, weeks before he entered the classroom. His employment ended on 4 October 2019. The criminal process concluded on 4 March 2021 at Worcester Crown Court, where he was convicted and sentenced in the same hearing: fourteen months’ imprisonment, ten years on the sex offender register, a ten-year sexual harm prevention order, forfeiture of all devices and a £100 victim surcharge. The Teaching Regulation Agency brought a single allegation of conviction of a relevant offence covering all seven counts; Shakles admitted the facts in a response dated 11 March 2022 and in a statement of agreed facts signed on 18 January 2022, and the case was decided at a private meeting without a hearing.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted of making indecent material involving children across a four-year span and of attempting sexual communication with a child; fourteen months’ imprisonment, ten-year register and order; banned for life with no review and no restoration.

The panel treated the certificate of conviction from Worcester Crown Court as conclusive proof. It recorded that Shakles had been convicted of six counts of making indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children and one count of attempting to engage in sexual communications with someone he thought was a child — the certificate specifying an attempt contrary to section 1(1) of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981 rather than the substantive offence the original notice had cited, a correction reflected in the agreed facts. The sentencing package was unusually complete for a sentence measured in months: custody, a decade of registration, a decade under a sexual harm prevention order, and the loss of every device he owned. The panel found all seven alleged counts proved on that documentary basis and had no difficulty concluding the conduct involved breaches of the Teachers’ Standards, including the advice’s specific factor covering any activity involving indecent material of children. Three character references were submitted on his behalf, including one that stated, “My last note is I trust Liam around me and my kid.”

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel found no evidence that Shakles’s actions were not deliberate and no suggestion he acted under duress; on the contrary, it concluded his actions were “calculated and motivated”. It noted the character references but set against them the total absence of any evidence of insight or remorse for the offending, and the aggravating feature that the indecent-material conduct ran from 2015 to 2019 — a sustained period rather than an isolated lapse. The panel recommended a prohibition order without provisions for a review period. Meyrick agreed, writing that “the nature of the offences and the lack of insight or remorse mean that allowing a no review period is necessary”, that no review period was required to maintain public confidence in the profession, and that in view of the seriousness of the allegations found proved Shakles should not even be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach. The case was decided without Shakles or any representative attending.

Current Status

Shakles 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, dated 21 July 2022 on behalf of the Secretary of State, carries no review period and removes any right to apply for restoration — the severest structure the regulator issues, reserved for conduct where no period of absence could restore confidence. The order takes effect on service, subject to a right of appeal to the High Court within 28 days. The criminal sentence runs in parallel: the fourteen-month term was served in 2021, and the registration requirements and sexual harm prevention order each run for ten years from March 2021, into 2031. His dismissal from Ridgeway Academy and the lifetime prohibition together close every route back to child-facing work in English schools.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The case is a study in how completely a conviction of this type forecloses a teaching career, even one barely begun: Shakles entered the classroom in September 2019 and was gone within a month, well before the criminal courts reached his case in March 2021 and the regulator in July 2022. The decade-long register and SHPO obligations operate independently of the teaching ban, constraining where he may live, work and travel long after the custodial term expired. The panel’s handling of the character references is the cautionary note — supporters who trusted him around children could not move the regulatory outcome at all, because the Advice treats indecent-material offending involving children as categorically incompatible with teaching. For the school, the episode underlined the limits of pre-employment screening: nothing in his short, unqualified tenure forewarned of conduct that predated it by years.

Sources

• Dept for Education, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Liam Shakles” — source