Nicholas Lowson
Introduction
Nicholas Lowson was Head of Design, Technology and Engineering at The Cherwell School in Oxford from 2014 until his resignation in 2019, suspended after police told the school he was under investigation and charged months later over a historic 2006 voyeurism incident. In October 2019 he was convicted at Gloucestershire Magistrates’ Court of attempting to observe a person doing a private act — the person, the Teaching Regulation Agency panel noted, was under 16 at the time. He received no prison sentence, and the panel accepted his teaching record was never in question, but it found the conviction a relevant offence and his response to it showed no insight; decision maker Alan Meyrick banned him from teaching for life with no review period on 27 October 2021.
Background Information
Lowson had led the design, technology and engineering faculty at The Cherwell School since 1 September 2014. In January 2019 the school was contacted by police and told he was the subject of a current investigation; he was suspended. On 19 October 2019 the school received a court statement detailing charges of historic voyeurism and attempted voyeurism relating to an incident in 2006, which followed a report to police. The school commenced its own investigation, and Lowson resigned from his position. He was convicted on or around 17 October 2019 of attempting to observe a person doing a private act, contrary to section 1 of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981; the disposition included no imprisonment, which the panel read as placing the offence at the less serious end of the possible spectrum.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Department head convicted of attempting to observe a child during a private act in a 2006 incident; no prison, no insight, lifetime teaching ban.
The case was decided without a hearing on Lowson’s signed statement of agreed facts of 8 February 2021, with the certified court register confirming the conviction. The panel’s difficulty was not the finding but the weighting: it acknowledged his teaching proficiency was never in question, took account of the written references produced when he applied for the Cherwell role attesting to his previous good record, and noted his statement that he had a difficult family relationship at the time of the 2006 incident. It also found his actions deliberate — “calculated and motivated” — and, critically, that the person whose private act he attempted to observe was a child under 16, and that he worked with pupils of a similar age at the time of the offence. The references dated from 2014, five years before his conviction; the panel noted that no recent references attested to his abilities or character afterwards.
What foreclosed any middle outcome was his own account of the conviction. In his response to the notice of referral, Lowson stated that he had “completed [his] punishment a year ago” and was trying to move on. The panel held this did not demonstrate insight into his actions — a finding Meyrick adopted with “considerable weight”, reasoning that the lack of insight created some risk of repetition that put pupils’ future wellbeing at risk. The panel recommended prohibition without a review period; Meyrick agreed, citing the nature of the offence and the absence of insight or remorse. He accepted that Lowson had not used his professional position to influence or exploit anyone — the offence was entirely outside education — but found that behaviour toward a child of this kind remained squarely within the relevant-offence category.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The consequences were administrative and terminal rather than public: suspension once police disclosed the investigation, resignation once charges landed, conviction in the magistrates’ court with a non-custodial outcome, and the lifetime ban two years later. The published decision contains no media coverage, no parent or school-community reaction, and no statement from the school beyond the chronology. Among the site’s voyeurism-class cases it is the one where the regulator stated most plainly that the teacher’s professional abilities were untouched — and banned him anyway.
Current Status
Nicholas Lowson 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 he is not entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach. His conviction stands on the criminal record; the decision records the sentence as not including imprisonment and notes nothing further about his circumstances after the referral.
Impact on Their Career/Life
The case is the site’s starkest statement of how little professional competence weighs against a relevant conviction involving a child: a department head with good references, no abuse of his position, an offence thirteen years old, and a non-custodial sentence — banned for life without review because his own written response said he had completed his punishment a year ago and wanted to move on. The panel treated that sentence as the absence of insight, and the decision maker treated the absence of insight as future risk. For comparable files it draws the line clearly: the remorseless framing of a conviction as a paid debt forecloses the review periods that other non-custodial cases on this site received.