Stephen Olanipekun

Introduction

Stephen Olanipekun is a former teacher at Blackfen School for Girls in Sidcup, south-east London, who was prohibited from teaching indefinitely in July 2023 after a Teaching Regulation Agency panel found he failed to maintain professional boundaries with pupils — driving a sixth-former home after meeting her at a petrol station to avoid detection, exchanging late-night texts with kisses and swear words with another pupil, messaging pupils on Snapchat, and dancing intimately with a pupil at the sixth-form prom — and then falsified his CV and a job application to the East London Business Alliance to conceal why he had left teaching. Olanipekun, who was present and represented at a five-day public hearing, admitted most of the boundary allegations, but the panel found the sexual-motivation allegation against him not proven. Decision maker Marc Cavey imposed a prohibition order with a two-year review period.

Background Information

Olanipekun was employed as a teacher at Blackfen School for Girls from April 2015. The concerns that ended his classroom career accumulated across 2018: a management instruction letter about his conduct towards pupils dated 18 October 2018, followed by several staff raising concerns about his behaviour towards a pupil at the sixth-form prom. He was dismissed for gross misconduct on 12 December 2019. In January 2020 he applied to the East London Business Alliance for a Project Manager role, and it was the Alliance’s own referral to the TRA — reporting that an anonymous allegation had exposed his falsified application — that brought the case to the regulator. The hearing ran from 3 to 7 July 2023, in public, with the allegations amended during the course of the hearing.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Boundary breaches proved; sexual motivation not proven. The panel found proved: driving Pupil A home after arranging to meet her at a petrol station away from the school (1(c)); inappropriate late-night texts to Pupil B with kisses, swear words and personal details, sent while he was suspended (1(d)(i)–(vi)); Snapchat contact with pupils (1(e)); sharing an Uber with two pupils after a prom (1(f)); and the ELBA application dishonesty (8 and 9, with Ivey v Genting Casinos dishonesty found). Prom allegations 2(b)(i), 2(b)(ii) and 2(b)(v) — hand-holding particulars, being pressed together while dancing, and hand on thigh — were NOT proven, nor was allegation 6 (sexual motivation) or the claim that he failed to stop dancing with Pupil C after staff separated them. Allegations 1(a) and 1(b) were discontinued mid-hearing.

The petrol-station detail was the panel’s core finding of concealment. Olanipekun gave evidence that Pupil A, unwell at an after-school music session, asked him in a “sheepish manner” to drive her home; he declined several times before agreeing, and said he had heard her parent approve the arrangement on the phone. But a witness told the investigation he had picked the girl up from a Shell petrol station 200–300 yards from the school, and Olanipekun conceded to the panel that he had told Pupil A to meet him there “as he knew that giving her a lift was not the right thing to do. It was a way to avoid his action being detected.” After dropping her home he sat in his car with her and talked. He admitted in his written statement that he was ashamed of the actions.

The texting allegations were largely admitted. Olanipekun accepted that messages to Pupil B — a pupil who spent time in the music department he ran — were inappropriate in nature, sent late at night, included kisses (“x”) and swear words (“taking the piss” and “bloody”), shared personal information, and were sent at a time when he was suspended while the school investigated his conduct towards Pupil A. The panel also found he failed to report safeguarding issues arising from Pupil B’s disclosures about her wellbeing, despite recent safeguarding training that reinforced reporting duties, and that he gave pupils a lift home against that same training. On the dishonesty limb, the ELBA referral established that his CV stated he had left the school in August 2017 and worked as a project co-ordinator at a company thereafter — both false — and a friend had provided a false reference and employment history; Olanipekun admitted the deception and was dismissed by the Alliance too. Applying the Supreme Court’s Ivey test, the panel found his conduct dishonest.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The published decision records no press coverage or public statements; the consequences it documents are the December 2019 dismissal for gross misconduct, the failed ELBA application that ended in a second dismissal, and the lifetime ban. The panel found a strong public interest in the safeguarding and protection of pupils given the inappropriate messages and the failure to report safeguarding concerns, and it concluded that by the standard of the ordinary intelligent and well-informed citizen, Olanipekun had shown “a significant lack of integrity and dishonesty” both in the ELBA application and in the pupil contact. The sexual-motivation finding going against the regulator was the case’s notable limit: the panel accepted there was no evidence he had acted in pursuit of sexual gratification or a future sexual relationship with any pupil.

Current Status

On 10 July 2023, decision maker Marc Cavey, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, prohibited Stephen Olanipekun from teaching indefinitely — he cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. Cavey confirmed the panel’s two-year review recommendation, quoting its reasoning that although dishonesty was found, Olanipekun had “demonstrated some insight over the inappropriateness of his behaviour” and that the evidence of his abilities as a teacher persuaded the panel he “will have a lot to offer the teaching profession.” He may apply for the order to be set aside, but not until 14 July 2025 at the earliest; without a successful application the prohibition stands for life. The order took effect from the date it was served on him, with a right of appeal to the High Court within 28 days.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Olanipekun’s case is a two-act collapse: the teaching career ended with the December 2019 gross-misconduct dismissal, and the attempted second act — rebranding himself as a project manager with a fabricated CV and a friend’s false reference — ended in a second dismissal and the referral that produced the ban. The panel’s split findings matter to how the case reads: this was not a finding of sexual misconduct, but of persistent boundary-breaking that escalated from a management instruction to suspension to dismissal, capped by premeditated dishonesty about all of it on the way out. The two-year review period keeps a narrow door open from July 2025, but any future panel will read the same file: petrol-station pickup, prom, late-night texts, and a CV written to hide the first dismissal.

Sources

• Teaching Regulation Agency, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Stephen Olanipekun” — source