A teacher who avoided prison after engaging in sexual activities with a 15 year old student in her car has been struck off.
Siobhan McLean, 34, encountered the boy while serving as head of pupil support at a secondary school in South Lanarkshire. She was assisting his relative with university applications and also conducting study classes that the boy attended.
McLean later initiated contact with him on social media, leading to an exchange of messages before they had sex in a flat after a night out. They engaged in sexual activity for a second time in her BMW in a car park at Craignethan Castle near Blackwood, Lanarkshire, in September 2022.
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McLean, from Airdrie, Lanarkshire, appeared at Hamilton Sheriff Court where she confessed to engaging in sexual activity. She was sentenced to complete 300 hours of unpaid work and placed under supervision for three years last October.
Her teaching registration has now been revoked by the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), reports the Daily Record.
A ‘removal’ order is listed against her registration on the official GTCS website, indicating that she has been banned from teaching and will not be able to return unless she can demonstrate her fitness to do so. McLean was dismissed from her teaching position by South Lanarkshire Council following the revelation of her inappropriate relationship with the student.
The disgraced ex-RE teacher has been slapped with a 12-month tagging order and is forbidden from unsupervised contact with any children other than her own. She’s been placed on the sex offenders’ register for a decade and her name now sits on the list of those deemed unfit to work with kids.
The single mum is also facing a five-year ban on contacting the victim or his family.
Sheriff Liam Murphy didn’t mince words, telling her: “You pled guilty to a serious offence involving a significant breach of trust. In the criminal justice social work report you were able to recognise the impact of this on the victim and his family. Taking into account all of the circumstances, I’m satisfied that there is an appropriate way to deal with you by way of an alternative to a custodial sentence but this should not detract from the gravity of your conduct.”
At a hearing in January, it emerged that social workers monitoring her case had given her the thumbs up in their reports, noting she wouldn’t need to return to court unless she cocked up any part of her order.
According to the GTCS website: “A removal order prohibits a teacher from making a registration application for a specified period – the maximum period is two years. A teacher who has been removed from the register will only be granted registration again where they demonstrate to a fitness to teach panel that they are now fit to teach.”
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