Liyarna Beamish
Introduction
Liyarna Beamish is a former teacher at Ribston Hall High School, a grammar school in Gloucester, who was prohibited from teaching indefinitely after admitting that she engaged in sexual intercourse and sexual activity with a colleague on the school premises during school hours, and sent him explicit messages from her phone during the school day. Beamish worked at the school from 1 September 2016 until 15 July 2024; the conduct surfaced on 26 June 2024 when a third party contacted the school, screenshots of the messages were taken, and she admitted everything at the investigation stage after first denying it. At her request the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) case was decided without a hearing on a signed statement of agreed facts, and on 11 July 2025 David Oatley, deciding on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education, prohibited her from teaching indefinitely with a two-year review period — set-aside not before 2027.
Background Information
Beamish had been employed at Ribston Hall High School for nearly eight years when the case broke. On 26 June 2024 the school was contacted by a third party regarding Beamish and a colleague — Colleague A in the published decision — engaging in sexual intercourse on the school’s premises. Screenshots were taken of messages between the two. After initially denying it, Beamish admitted at the investigation stage that she had engaged in sexual intercourse and other sexual activity with Colleague A on the premises during school hours, and that she had sent and received explicit messages on her phone during school hours. The matter was referred to the TRA on 19 July 2024, four days after her employment ended, and she signed the statement of agreed facts on 26 January 2025.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Admitted on agreed facts. Beamish admitted every allegation — sexual intercourse and/or sexual activity with Colleague A on the school premises, during school hours, and explicit phone messages during school hours — and admitted the conduct was sexual in nature and sexually motivated. The conduct was with a consenting adult colleague; no pupil was involved and no criminal charge was brought.
At the school’s investigatory meeting of 8 July 2024, recorded in the panel’s decision, Beamish answered “Yes” when asked whether she had engaged in sexual activity and sexual intercourse in school with a member of staff, named Colleague A, said it had happened over a “Couple of Years – multiple occasions”, and described where: the “Art room, and two art cupboards, both doors locked, downstairs door locked as well”, during the school day and after school. Confronted with the messages, she confirmed she sent and received them and that the arrangements they detailed represented liaisons that took place in school. In her written submissions she expressly admitted engaging in sexual activity and intercourse on the premises during working hours with a member of teaching staff.
The panel found all four allegations proved on her admissions and the screenshots. In sanction, it found no evidence her actions were not deliberate, no duress, and — notably — only limited evidence of insight and remorse. Beamish argued in her written statement that she did not think her behaviour could have resulted in harm to children because she took many precautions to ensure she would never be seen: the messages were sent on private devices through an encrypted app, “not visible at any time to a third party”. The panel noted the submission that the events occurred at a difficult, personally vulnerable time for her, but was not satisfied there was sufficient evidence that Colleague A’s claimed emotional manipulation explained her conduct. The panel recommended a prohibition order with immediate effect and a two-year review period.
Oatley’s decision acknowledged the mitigating shape of the case directly: the actions “were actions taken with another consenting adult which caused no third party any direct harm (though they had the potential to do so)”, and he could “envisage a scenario where Ms Beamish could return to the profession in the future” — which is why the order carries a review rather than no review. But prohibition itself was proportionate and in the public interest, not to punish the conduct’s severity but because a reasonable member of the public would expect a prohibition order where sexual activity took place on school premises during the school day, and because a published warning alone would not maintain confidence in the profession.
Public Reaction and Consequences
Like most TRA cases the story stayed inside the regulatory record: no press coverage of the investigation, the resignation or the ban has been identified, and the school’s name enters the public domain only through the published decision. The professional consequences were nonetheless decisive. Beamish’s employment at Ribston Hall ended on 15 July 2024, three weeks after the third-party contact, and the TRA referral followed within days. Because she chose determination without a hearing, there was no contested evidence and no public statement from her beyond the agreed facts and her written submissions — including the encrypted-app argument the panel recorded without accepting its conclusion.
Current Status
As of the July 2025 decision, Beamish 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 from 2027 — two years from the order — at the earliest; a panel would then decide whether insight and circumstances justified lifting it, and without a successful application the prohibition stands for life. The decision expressly leaves the door ajar: Oatley accepted the possibility of a future return, and the panel itself judged the risk of repetition “relatively low” and noted some limited evidence of steps she had taken to identify and understand her motivations and triggers. There is no public record of her working in education since.
Impact on Their Career/Life
An eight-year career at a single Gloucester grammar school ended not with a criminal case or a pupil complaint but with a third party’s phone call — and the encrypted-app precaution she relied on became evidence of deliberateness rather than protection when the screenshots surfaced anyway. The two-year review keeps her the youngest end of the ban ladder the TRA publishes: a lifetime bar in law, a possible way back from mid-2027 in practice, and a published decision that permanently links her name to the art-room cupboards she described to investigators.