Reuben Adams
Introduction
Reuben Adams is a former mathematics teacher at Sunninghill Preparatory School in Dorchester who accepted a police caution for possessing an indecent image of a child and was found to have sent a Valentine’s Day card to a 13-year-old pupil two decades earlier, and who has now been banned from teaching for life. Adams, 53, saw his employment end in January 2021 after a National Crime Agency report led to his arrest, and a file review then surfaced the 1997 card. A Teaching Regulation Agency panel found every allegation proved, including that his conduct was sexually motivated, and the Secretary of State imposed a prohibition order with no review period and no entitlement ever to apply for restoration.
Background Information
Adams taught mathematics at Sunninghill Preparatory School from 1 September 2011 until his employment ended on 15 January 2021. Earlier in his career, in February 1997, he worked as a teacher at Lockyer’s Middle School, where the conduct involving Pupil A later occurred. On 11 April 2020, during the first coronavirus lockdown, a user of an Imgur account uploaded a Category C indecent image of a child to the internet; the National Crime Agency reported this to the police, who identified the account user as Adams. He was arrested at his home address on 25 August 2020, and an Apple iPhone and iPad were seized.
In police interview, Adams said that during lockdown he started using Pornhub and ended up on Imgur, where he chatted to people and obtained images of clothed girls he described as 16 or older; he accepted obtaining the images for sexual purposes, said he regretted looking, and insisted he was not sexually interested in children, adding that the only child-related search term he used was “teen”. On 26 August 2020 he made a self-referral to his headteacher about the arrest.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Mixed admissions, regulatory findings. Adams admitted the 1997 card allegations and accepted the caution, but denied possessing twenty indecent images (admitting one) and denied the sexually motivated limb in relation to the card; the panel found all allegations proved. No conviction arose — the criminal matter ended in a caution.
When police examined Adams’s iPhone and iPad they found 84 images, of which 64 were deemed not illegal. The remaining 20 were classified as Category C indecent images of children — the lowest of three categories — nine of them unique, the rest duplicates likely produced by the iPad itself. The forensic investigator told the panel he was certain the nine unique images were indecent, and that the children shown appeared to be girls in their early teens, probably 13 or 14. Adams had accepted a police caution for possession of an indecent image on 29 January 2021, which placed him on the sex offenders register for two years, and a referral was made to the TRA on 1 February 2021.
The 1997 allegations emerged indirectly. Adams’s self-referral prompted a review of his personnel file, which surfaced minutes of a Dorset County Council multi-agency meeting from March 2021 recording that he had sent a Valentine’s Day card to Pupil A — a 13-year-old female pupil — in February 1997 while he taught at Lockyer’s Middle School, along with an inappropriate handwritten message inside it. Adams admitted sending the card and message but contended the allegation should be removed because, he said, the union and local authority had agreed the record would be removed after a probationary period. The panel rejected that contention and found both particulars proved.
On motivation, the panel found Adams’s possession of the images was for sexual gratification — he had admitted as much for one image — and concluded the Valentine’s card was sent with a view to pursuing a future sexual relationship with a 13-year-old pupil at his school. It found the sexually motivated allegation proved across all limbs. Adams had described the card as “naive”; the panel was in no doubt about its character. His partial admissions — accepting possession of one image and one caution while denying the twenty-image allegation — were treated as equivocal and therefore as denials, and the panel found the full allegation proved on the forensic evidence.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The case ended a ten-year tenure at Sunninghill Preparatory School and produced a ban at the strongest tier the regulator can impose. The panel observed that the findings — possession of nine unique Category C indecent images in pursuit of sexual gratification, a caution that put him on the sex offenders register for two years, and a Valentine’s card sent to a 13-year-old pupil with a view to a future sexual relationship — created a strong public interest in safeguarding pupils. It recommended a prohibition order with no review period. Decision maker Marc Cavey, acting for the Secretary of State on 25 November 2025, agreed and barred Adams from teaching with no right of restoration.
Current Status
Adams is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. The decision maker determined that he shall not be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach, so the ban has no review date and no application route. The determination is dated 20 November 2025 and the outcome was published on 16 January 2026. The police caution of January 2021 remains on his record with its two-year sex offenders registration completed. No appeal was reported.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Adams’s case shows how a decades-old incident can resurface through an unrelated investigation: the 2020 arrest for the Imgur image triggered the self-referral, the file review, and the rediscovery of the 1997 card, and the two matters together closed his career permanently. The panel weighed his denial of the twenty-image allegation and his attempts to have the 1997 finding struck out as relevant to insight, and found neither persuasive. With no entitlement to apply for restoration, no school in England may employ him, and the teaching career he began in the 1990s is closed for good.