William Nunn

Introduction

William Nunn is a former teacher at Cotham School in Bristol who was prohibited from teaching indefinitely in June 2023 after admitting that he accepted a Snapchat friend request from a stranger who offered to share indecent images of children, received and viewed one such image, and then failed to report it to the school, Snapchat or the police. Decision maker Marc Cavey found the allegations proved on his admissions and imposed a lifetime ban with no review period and no right to apply for restoration. The panel found no evidence he had grasped the danger to the child depicted in the image.

Background Information

Nunn worked at Cotham School in Bristol. On or around 17 August 2020 he added an individual as a friend on his Snapchat account after that person offered to share indecent images of children, and on the same day he received and viewed an indecent image of a child via the platform. He failed to report the contact. On 24 March 2021 officers from the Avon & Somerset Constabulary Child Protection Team visited the school to speak to him; he was interviewed under caution the same day and his devices were seized for forensic analysis. He was suspended from the school on 25 March 2021.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Adjudicated vs. alleged. Nunn admitted the facts of allegations 1 to 5 in his response to the notice of proceedings and in a signed statement of agreed facts, and admitted his behaviour amounted to unacceptable professional conduct; the panel found the allegations proved on those admissions.

The criminal side of the case closed without charges: the police took no further action because Nunn had deleted Snapchat from his device, the image could not be located, and no other indecent material or indicative searches were found on his equipment. But the professional case proceeded on his admissions. The school’s disciplinary hearing concluded with his dismissal by outcome letter on 27 July 2021, and the school referred the matter to the TRA on 7 September 2021. The panel found the friend-request acceptance, the receipt and viewing of the image, and the failure to report all proved, together with the associated findings of dishonesty in his account of the episode.

Public Reaction and Consequences

No press coverage attaches to the case; the published decision is the public record. The consequences ran from the police interview through the school’s dismissal to the professional ban. The panel weighed Nunn’s mitigation — he stated he understood the severity of the allegations and did not wish to trivialise them or make excuses — but found it insufficient: “Nowhere in any of the mitigation provided by him did Mr Nunn appear to recognise sufficiently the impact on the child in the image and the potential danger that child was in.” It noted he knew the proper course of action from his training at the time and did not take it, and it had “no confidence that he would act appropriately if given a second chance”.

Current Status

Nunn 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 further decided that he shall not be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach. The determination is dated 30 May 2023, with Cavey’s order dated 2 June 2023, effective from service. He retains a right of appeal to the King’s Bench Division of the High Court within 28 days of notice of the order; the published record shows none was filed.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Nunn’s case defines the reporting duty in its starkest form: a single image, received and viewed once, from a stranger’s unsolicited offer, was enough to end a teaching career because the offence lay in what he failed to do. The police took no action — the deletion of the app left nothing to charge — yet the panel treated his trained knowledge of the reporting route and his silence as the misconduct itself, compounded by insufficient insight in mitigation. The no-review, no-restoration outcome marks the regulator’s view that safeguarding reflexes, once demonstrated absent, cannot be assumed to return.

Sources

• Dept for Education, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr William Nunn” — source