Full hearing (conduct)

1. On 19 January 2021 the Teacher was convicted of the following offences at Livingston Sheriff Court, both offences occurred while the Teacher was employed as a teacher by the Scottish Borders Council:
   
   • (a) On 21 March 2020 at [redacted], the Teacher did behave in a threatening or abusive manner which was likely to cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm in that you did utter threats to damage property, utter threats of violence, throw liquid on Witness 1, [redacted]; Contrary to Section 38 (1) of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 and it will be proved in terms of Section 1 of the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 that the aforesaid offence was aggravated by involving abuse of [redacted].
   • (b) On 23 March 2020 on a road or other public place, namely [redacted] and elsewhere, the Teacher did drive a motor vehicle, namely motor [redacted] registered number [redacted] after consuming so much alcohol that the proportion of it in your breath was 112 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath which exceeded the prescribed limit, namely 22 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath; Contrary to the Road Traffic Act 1988, section 5 (1) (a).

For the above offences the Teacher was sentenced to a Community Payback Order which involved a supervision period of 15 months and 130 hours of unpaid work and a Non-Harassment Order for 2 years. The Teacher was also disqualified from driving for 18 months, his licence was endorsed, and his car was forfeited.
 
In light of the above it is alleged that the Teacher’s fitness to teach is impaired and he is unfit to teach, as a result of breaching Parts 1.3,1.4, 1.6 and 2.3 of GTC Scotland’s Code of Professionalism and Conduct.

Following an order by a Panel, this hearing will take place remotely, by way of Microsoft Teams.

Should any members of the public or press wish to attend the hearing (virtually), they must contact GTC Scotland (by emailing regulation@gtcs.org.uk) no less than 48 working hours prior to the start time of the hearing (i.e. by 10.00 am on 4 December 2025) in order to request the link to the public hearing. Any requests to attend the hearing beyond this time cannot be facilitated and will not be responded to.

Attendees will require to have the Microsoft Teams application downloaded to their device. You can download Microsoft Teams from the Microsoft website or from the Apple Store on Apple devices, or the Google Play Store on Android devices.

When requesting a link to the public hearing, the following information will require to be provided:

• The full name of the person who will attend the hearing
• Date of hearing
• Email address to which we can send the Microsoft Teams link
• Contact number we can reach you on if there are any technical issues during the hearing
• Reason for wishing to observe (for example: press)

Please note that only the person named who has requested access to the hearing, and who has been provided with the link, will be permitted to enter the hearing, unless a substitute attendee has been intimated in advance.

As with hearings held in our office, members of the public and press in attendance are reminded not to interrupt proceedings and it is strictly prohibited for an observer to audio or video record, screen shot, photograph, copy or share our hearing proceedings. Under Rule 1.7.10, a Panel may decide to exclude any person where the Panel is of the opinion that his/her presence is disruptive or otherwise detrimental to proceedings being conducted in line with the general objectives. Furthermore, members of the public and press will not be permitted access to the private discussions of the Panel.

Please read the remote hearing observer guidance on our website.