Steven Bould
Introduction
Steven Bould was a mathematics teacher at a school run by The de Ferrers Trust in Staffordshire for under a year before his July 2019 dismissal opened onto something far worse: nine convictions for sexual assault, six of intentional touching of a female and three of sexual assault of a girl under thirteen, with five of the nine offences committed in the final weeks of his classroom career. A Stafford Crown Court jury convicted him in October 2020 and he was sentenced in February 2021 to a term of imprisonment. He admitted the convictions as relevant offences before a Teaching Regulation Agency panel through a statement of agreed facts signed by his representative, expressed no remorse and showed no insight, and on 21 February 2022 decision maker Alan Meyrick banned him from teaching for life, with no review period and no right to apply for restoration.
Background Information
Bould was employed as a mathematics teacher at the school between September 2018 and his dismissal in July 2019. The offences for which he was convicted on 19 October 2020, and sentenced on 9 February 2021 at Stafford Crown Court, were six counts of intentionally touching a female with no penetration — with offence dates ranging from September 2015 to February 2019, five of the six falling between November 2018 and February 2019, the final months of his teaching post — and three counts of sexual assault of a female under thirteen committed between November 2018 and February 2019. The panel noted that the actions which led to the convictions took place within the classroom setting, and that the behaviour involved in committing them could have had a direct impact on the safety of pupils. It treated the certificate of conviction as conclusive proof of the facts and found both allegations proved.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Convicted of nine sexual offences against females including a girl under thirteen, committed in and around his classroom; imprisoned; banned for life with no review and no restoration.
The regulatory case was decided without a hearing on the TRA’s agreement and Bould’s own request, through a statement of agreed facts signed on his behalf by his authorised representative on 20 August 2021 admitting the fact of the convictions and their relevance. The panel verified the allegations against the papers and found them proved, recording that the convictions were for relevant offences necessarily involving breaches of the Teachers’ Standards on treating pupils with dignity, safeguarding pupils’ wellbeing, and acting within the statutory frameworks of the profession. The panel observed that his behaviour “ultimately led to a sentence of imprisonment, which was indicative of the seriousness of the offences committed”, and that the public interest in protecting pupils weighed heavily given “the serious findings of convictions relating to inappropriate touching of children in the classroom setting”. A representative signed the agreed facts, but no mitigation, no character evidence and no expression of remorse or insight appears anywhere in the decision.
The panel weighed whether publication of the findings alone would satisfy the ordinary intelligent citizen and concluded it would not: public confidence in the profession “could be seriously weakened if conduct such as that found against Mr Bould were not treated with the utmost seriousness”. It recommended a prohibition order with immediate effect and, because the offences were sexual assaults carried out in the setting where children were entitled to be safest, no review period. Meyrick adopted the recommendation in full, finding that the serious nature of the convictions and “the lack of any apparent remorse or insight” made no review necessary to maintain public confidence, and in view of the seriousness he additionally removed any entitlement to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The timeline shows a school acting within weeks of the conduct: Bould, employed from September 2018, was dismissed in July 2019, less than three months after the last of the offences dated in the decision, and the criminal process returned nine convictions by October 2020. The decision records no public statement from him, no appeal against the regulatory outcome, and no engagement with the Teaching Regulation Agency beyond the representative-signed admission. The classroom setting of the offences gave the case its particular weight in the panel’s analysis — the protection of pupils was identified as the strongest public interest consideration in prohibiting him.
Current Status
Steven Bould is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. The prohibition carries no review period, so there is no date at which he may seek to have it set aside, and the order removes any entitlement to apply for restoration. His criminal sentence, imposed by Stafford Crown Court in February 2021, was a term of imprisonment; the decision records no further details of its length or conditions. His teaching career, barely eleven months long at the trust, is closed in every direction the system provides.
Impact on Their Career/Life
The case compresses the full machinery of teacher safeguarding into eleven months of employment: a newly arrived maths teacher, offences beginning within weeks of his appointment, dismissal at the school’s initiative, a jury’s convictions across three distinct victims including a girl under thirteen, and a lifetime ban decided on paper because there was nothing to hear from him. It stands as an example of the regulator’s least discretionary outcome — prohibition, no review, no restoration — applied to a case where the classroom itself was the site of the offending. For the trust, the September 2018 hiring is the date the entire chain of consequence runs from.