Lisa Howes

Introduction

Lisa Howes was a head of house and modern foreign languages teacher at Hedingham School and Sixth Form in Essex who, over three months in 2018, told her employer she had appointments for an MRI body scan and a lumbar puncture and was about to start a course of radiotherapy — none of which was true — and backed the claims with forged NHS letters. The West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust flagged the documents as fraudulent in March 2018, an investigation followed, and she was summarily dismissed that June. She denied the allegations but did not attend her hearing, and on 14 June 2021 decision maker Sarah Buxcey banned her from teaching, with the prohibition reviewable after two years.

Background Information

Howes had worked at Hedingham School and Sixth Form since 1 April 2002, rising to head of house alongside her languages teaching. Between January and April 2018 she requested a series of periods of absence. On 8 January 2018 she emailed Individual B, a school manager, to say she had an MRI body scan appointment, and provided a letter she represented as coming from Individual C, a consultant. In February 2018 she gave false information about a lumbar puncture appointment. On 7 March 2018 she emailed that she was about to start a course of radiotherapy, following it on 19 March with a second purported consultant letter setting out a treatment plan to begin on 10 April 2018. Individual B and the headteacher reviewed that letter, sought HR advice, and contacted the Trust to verify it. On 26 March 2018 a representative of the West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust advised the school that the letter appeared to be fraudulent; further checks found earlier documents were also fraudulent. The school held a disciplinary hearing on 16 April 2018 and a second on 25 June 2018, ending in summary dismissal for gross misconduct. Her appeal, heard on 20 September 2018 with union representation, upheld the outcome.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Fabricated NHS letters covering a fake MRI scan, lumbar puncture and radiotherapy course to take time off; exposed when the hospital told the school the documents were fraudulent; banned from teaching with a two-year review period.

The panel heard oral evidence from two witnesses, including a hospital representative whose testimony dismantled the documents one feature at a time: barcodes used only by an external company on the hospital’s behalf, appointment details not in the Trust’s standard format, phrasing inconsistent with standard practice, no record of any booking in hospital records — and confirmation from the consultant himself that he had not treated Howes at the relevant time. That witness, unconnected to the school, said she was “100% sure that the letter was not genuine”, and the panel found her “an entirely credible witness”. All six particulars were found proved: the false scan claim, the forged scan letter, the false lumbar puncture information, the false radiotherapy claim, the forged radiotherapy letter, and the resulting findings of dishonesty and failure to act with integrity. The panel found Howes’s conduct amounted to unacceptable professional conduct and conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute, finding the misconduct serious “as they include a finding of falsifying NHS documents and lying to the School about her reasons for absence from work, conduct found to be dishonest and lacked integrity”.

Public Reaction and Consequences

Howes did not attend. She acknowledged the notice on 10 May 2021 and wrote the same day: “I do not have any further evidence to present, everything I have said in my final statement is my ’evidence’”, adding that “I do not wish to once again hear certain members of the hearing, present once again, what I believe to be a consistent attack on me personally and professionally” and that “An adjournment would not facilitate me attending.” A letter from her GP recommended against attending a virtual hearing. The panel proceeded in her absence, satisfied it could test the lines of defence from her written representations. On mitigation, it accepted she had previous good character over at least the previous decade — a 2010 disciplinary had expired — and reviewed thank-you cards from ex-pupils praising her as hard-working and going “beyond the call of duty”, but gave them less weight because several were undated and none could be tested. It found no exceptional contribution to teaching, held that dishonesty of this kind struck at public confidence, and recommended prohibition with a two-year review period, which Buxcey imposed.

Current Status

Howes is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. She may apply for the order to be set aside after two years — from June 2023 — with no guarantee of success. The dismissal dates to 25 June 2018, three years before the regulatory order; her internal appeal failed in September 2018, so the regulatory ban confirmed an outcome the school’s own process had already reached. The decision records no criminal prosecution arising from the forged documents; the matter was resolved through employment and regulatory channels. The two-year review window has since passed, meaning an application was available to her from June 2023, though the published record shows the prohibition standing.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The case is a study in how document fraud collapses under verification: three years of apparently good standing ended in a month once the school did what HR advisers recommend and asked the hospital whether its own letter was real. The panel’s handling of the mitigation is the cautionary note for anyone facing a similar hearing — character evidence from pupils, however warm, carries little weight when undated and untested, and the finding of dishonesty sat in a category the Advice treats as incompatible with teaching regardless of classroom record. For schools, the case underlined that sickness absence supported by documentation still requires verification where patterns raise concern. For the profession, it marked a nineteen-year career — head of house, modern languages, admired by ex-pupils — ended not by a lapse in the classroom but by letters forged to win a few weeks away from it.

Sources

• Dept for Education, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Ms Lisa Howes” — source