Mr Tyler Lewis

Introduction

Mr Tyler Lewis is a former PE teacher at The Corsham School in Wiltshire who was prohibited from teaching for life in September 2023 after a professional conduct panel found he had exchanged messages and nude images with a student, met her outside school, and then lied during the school’s investigation into their relationship. Lewis, who was born in January 1996 and was in his mid-twenties during the conduct, did not attend or take part in his hearing; the panel treated the allegations as not admitted and found the core of the case proved on the student’s evidence. The decision maker for the Secretary of State concluded he should never be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach.

Background Information

Lewis taught PE at The Corsham School, a secondary school in Wiltshire. The allegations spanned approximately 2020 to May 2022 and concerned a student referred to as Student A. The relationship with her was already the subject of school discipline before the regulator became involved: he received a Management Note of Expectations on 17 November 2021 and a First Written Warning for exchanging messages with her, and the school ran three separate investigations with escalating outcomes. He continued the contact anyway, and when the panel convened virtually on 11 September 2023 he was neither present nor represented.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Sexual messaging and images, then lies under investigation. Regulatory findings proved on the balance of probabilities, centred on a student the panel found compelling. No criminal conviction is recorded in the decision.

The panel found that from around March 2020, when he messaged her out of the blue on Instagram with “I told you I’d find you”, through her moving the contact to Snapchat, WhatsApp and iMessage, Lewis exchanged messages with Student A daily, including during lessons he was teaching. It found he hugged her, gave her flowers and perfume, sent a note reading “Remember how beautiful you are”, told her she looked good, and met her outside school. On the central allegations it found he sent her nude photographs of himself, taking them with his phone’s back-facing camera, and asked her to send nude images of herself; the panel expressly preferred her detailed account to his flat denial, finding him a compelling witness, and found the conduct sexual and sexually motivated.

The dishonesty findings closed the case. The panel found he never reported the messages to the school’s safeguarding lead as required, continued exchanging messages and meeting her after the Management Note and the written warning, and then, in a formal investigatory interview on 14 January 2022, said he had not exchanged messages with her since 17 November 2021 and had not met her in person since that date, findings the panel held were untrue and dishonest. A colleague described watching their phones buzz in sequence across the PE block on the student’s last day in May 2022 as they glanced at each other, evidence the panel accepted.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel found a strong public interest in safeguarding pupils given findings of conduct that was sexually motivated, dishonest and lacking in integrity, and concluded that Lewis had fundamentally breached the standards expected of a teacher and exploited his position of trust. It noted that his letter to the panel focused solely on an apology and the impact of his actions on himself, and that he showed no insight into the impact on Student A; it judged that if allowed to return there would be a real risk of repetition. The decision maker, finding the offences of sexual communication with a child and indecent images of a child relevant to the seriousness, decided no review period was sufficient and that Lewis should not be entitled to apply for restoration at all.

Current Status

The decision was made by Marc Cavey on behalf of the Secretary of State on 15 September 2023, following the panel’s determination of 14 September 2023. Mr Tyler Lewis is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. Because of the seriousness of the finding, the decision maker decided that Lewis shall not be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach, removing even the deferred-review route most prohibition orders carry. The order took effect from the date it was served on him, and he had a right of appeal to the King’s Bench Division of the High Court within 28 days.

Impact on Their Career/Life

A teaching career that was barely begun was ended permanently before Lewis turned thirty: the panel’s findings traced a two-year escalation from a first Instagram message to nude images and denial under investigation, with two formal school warnings ignored along the way. The no-restoration decision means no future application can revisit the ban, and the panel’s core evidentiary finding, that the student’s account was compelling while his was a lie, is now the permanent regulatory record of his name.

Sources

• Teaching Regulation Agency, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Tyler Lewis” — source