Matthew Gaute

Introduction

Matthew Gaute is a former teacher at the Priory School who was prohibited from teaching in July 2023 after admitting a sustained deception of his employer: while off work with what he said was cancer treatment, he produced a series of falsified medical letters and emails in invented names to explain his absences, then made untrue statements in meetings when the school began to doubt him. A Teaching Regulation Agency panel found six allegations proved on his admissions and found each act of deception dishonest. The Secretary of State’s decision maker imposed a prohibition order with a five-year review period — the panel judging that the motivation for the dishonesty was unknown, and that five years should give him the chance to understand it.

Background Information

Gaute joined the Priory School on 2 September 2012 as a teaching assistant and became a teacher on 1 September 2015. In July 2018 he told the school he had been diagnosed with myeloma, a blood cancer, and that six chemotherapy sessions would begin over the summer holidays. In the period that followed the school referred him to occupational health; a July 2019 assessment found him fit to work with no adjustments, and he was required to begin a 14-week course of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The decision records that across the treatment period he was absent one day through sickness and 3.8 days of planned treatment absences, that he provided no medical evidence to the school, and that in November 2019 he refused consent for occupational health to contact his GP or hospital — the point at which the school’s suspicions hardened.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Falsified letters behind a cancer story. Gaute admitted producing six falsified documents — letters and emails in names that were not real doctors or writers — and making untrue statements in meetings, all found dishonest.

Between 25 November 2019 and 7 January 2020 he produced to the school an undated falsified letter on plain paper purportedly from a Person A following a 21 November conversation; a falsified letter dated 28 November 2019 also in Person A’s name; a screenshot of a falsified email in Person A’s name; a falsified letter dated 13 December 2019 purportedly from a consultant oncologist, Person B; and a falsified email dated 22 January purportedly from Person C. The panel found the fabrications supported by telltale irregularities — the first letter undated and on plain, not hospital-headed, paper; an NHS number seven digits long instead of ten, and inconsistent with another he had given; IT evidence showing a draft letter had been created and saved on his own laptop — and by the confirmations that Person A was not a GMC-registered doctor, had never worked for the local NHS trust, and that Persons B and C had not written the documents attributed to them. In meetings from 27 November 2019 to 10 January 2020 he compounded the fraud with untrue statements: that Person A was based at the Mount Vernon Medical Centre and had typed and signed the letter in his presence, that Person A had printed the second letter and given it to him, and further claims about the email. He admitted all of this in a statement of agreed facts dated 20 June 2023.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The school suspended Gaute, and after a disciplinary process dismissed him on 3 February 2020 for gross misconduct; he was referred to the TRA on 23 July 2020. The published decision records no press coverage. In aggravation the panel found a sustained and extended period of deception, further elaborated each time he was questioned, compounded by a lack of insight and remorse — it could not be satisfied he would not repeat the conduct — and noted he had admitted the facts only four years after the allegations arose, in advance of the TRA meeting, after allowing the school to complete an unnecessarily lengthy disciplinary investigation. In mitigation, there was effectively nothing: the panel recorded that no mitigation was provided for it to consider. His case was decided at a private meeting on 17 July 2023 without a hearing, at his request.

Current Status

The panel considered not offering any review period, but because Gaute’s motivation for the serious dishonesty remained unknown it judged it proportionate to recommend a prohibition order with a review after five years, so that the longer period would give him the opportunity to reflect on and understand his motivation, develop insight and demonstrate remorse. On 24 July 2023, decision maker Sarah Buxcey, acting for the Secretary of State, confirmed the prohibition order with a five-year review period. Matthew Gaute is prohibited from teaching indefinitely — the ban covers every school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation and children’s home in England — and may apply to have the order set aside, but not before 25 July 2028. The order took effect on service, with a right of appeal to the High Court within 28 days.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Gaute’s case is the dishonesty-without-crime variant of cancellation: no conviction, no victim in court, just a workplace cancer story that collapsed under paper trails he created himself — the laptop draft, the wrong-length NHS number, the invented doctors. The panel’s reasoning marks the boundary between a ban with a review and one without: his deception was sustained and elaborated, but because no one could establish why he did it, he keeps a five-year door open. He left teaching by dismissal for gross misconduct in February 2020, and unless a future panel is persuaded before July 2028, the fraud that began as sick-leave cover ends his career permanently.

Sources

• Teaching Regulation Agency, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Matthew Gaute” — source