Mr Thomas Nixey

Introduction

Thomas Nixey taught at Nottingham High School in Nottingham from 1 September 2016 until January 2021, and was Head of Religious Studies from September 2019. In February 2024 a Teaching Regulation Agency professional conduct panel found that, while employed at the school, he engaged in sexual online communication with an unknown child under 16, that a computer-generated sexually explicit video involving two females who appeared to be under 16 was recovered from his laptop, and that he sent sexual messages to a 16-year-old boy and received an explicit image from him without reporting it. Nixey admitted every allegation through his Notice of Proceedings form, then chose not to attend the public hearing, which went ahead in his absence. On 22 February 2024 the Secretary of State, through decision maker Sarah Buxcey, prohibited him from teaching indefinitely, with no review period and no entitlement to apply for restoration.

Background Information

Nixey had received safeguarding training which the panel heard dated back to September 2016 and which presented the school’s child protection policy as applying to all children, not only its own pupils.

The police ended his employment. On 16 October 2020 he was arrested at the school in relation to possessing an indecent image and a sexual video of someone under 18, and was suspended with immediate effect. Disciplinary meetings followed that November and December; a hearing set for 16 December 2020 was postponed when Nixey was called to a police station that day for further questioning. On 11 January 2021 the police told the school they had questioned him over concerns about his seized laptop and would not be progressing their investigation any further. His employment ended on 20 January 2021, and the school referred him to the Teaching Regulation Agency on 1 February 2021.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Admitted misconduct. Mr Nixey admitted all of the allegations in the Notice of Proceedings form he completed on 21 December 2023, and admitted that the facts amounted to unacceptable professional conduct and/or conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute. He asked for the hearing to be held in private, then chose not to attend and was not represented; the panel proceeded in his absence, in public, and found every allegation proved on the balance of probabilities. No criminal charge followed: the police did not progress their investigation, and he was not charged over the Child A material due to evidential difficulties.

The first allegation reached back to December 2016: on or around 18 December, Nixey engaged in inappropriate online communication with an unknown child under the age of 16, discussing masturbation and sexual intercourse. Police located a chat from his Skype account dated that morning, starting at 09:33, with a boy aged 15 in the Philippines. The chat log itself could not be located for the hearing, but the contemporaneous police report described highly sexual language relating to masturbation and sexual intercourse, and in interview Nixey accepted the account was his while saying he could not remember any of the chat.

The second allegation concerned the same laptop. On or around 11 May 2018, police found a four-second computer-generated video, repeating on a loop, in the Google Chrome Cache of his account: sexually explicit footage of two girls aged approximately 12 to 14 in a classroom with an adult male. Nixey denied ever having seen such a video and could not explain how it got onto his laptop, but admitted the allegation.

The third strand involved Child A. Between around 19 and 27 July 2020, Nixey engaged in inappropriate online communication with a Twitter user who indicated they were 16 years old, sending messages of a sexual nature and receiving a sexually explicit image, offered by the young person and not requested by Nixey. In interview he admitted the account was his and described using it as escapism; police confirmed Child A was indeed a 16-year-old boy.

The fourth proved failure was concealment: he did not report to the school or the police that he had received the material from Child A, and the school learned of it only when American law enforcement traced the account to him. The panel further found the conduct sexual in nature and/or sexually motivated, and a breach of the school’s safeguarding and child protection policy.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel found no evidence that Nixey’s actions were not deliberate, noting that in his police interviews he relied wholly on the argument that he did not recall the conversations. He cited the difficulties the Covid pandemic and lockdown caused him, but the panel rejected that mitigation as inadequate: the 2016 and 2018 conduct pre-dated the pandemic and was of a similar nature to the 2020 offending. His written statement expressed regret and shame, but the panel found he had failed to acknowledge the impact of his conduct on Child A and the child from the Philippines, showing a lack of insight and remorse, and he provided no character references. The panel found both unacceptable professional conduct and conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute, and recommended a prohibition order with immediate effect and no review period, given findings that included viewing and possessing indecent images of a child.

Current Status

Sarah Buxcey’s decision on behalf of the Secretary of State, dated 22 February 2024, followed the panel’s recommendation. Nixey 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 placed considerable weight on the lack of full insight or remorse, which she judged to leave some risk of repetition and to put at risk the future wellbeing of pupils, and concluded that allowing no review period was necessary to maintain public confidence in the profession. Nixey is not entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach. The order takes effect from the date it is served, with a right of appeal to the High Court within 28 days.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Nixey’s five years at Nottingham High School ended with his suspension, the seizure of his laptop, and the termination of his employment. The indefinite prohibition order, set without any review period, permanently closes teaching in England to him, and the published decision — recording admitted sexual communication with children and indecent material recovered from his devices — remains part of the public record.

Sources

• Teaching Regulation Agency, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Thomas Nixey” — source