Former headteacher at a church school Paul Brown was found guilty of unacceptable professional misconduct after conversations on website Fetlife came to light
The former head of a church school has been banned from teaching for life after he discussed sexually abusing a child with a mother he met on a fetish website.
Paul Brown, who was also a designated safeguarding lead, left Bransgore Church of England school, in Christchurch, Hampshire, in April 2024 for “personal reasons”. But it has now emerged that he was arrested in July 2023 as a suspected paedophile, although he was not charged.
Brown had accessed the website Fetlife – for fans of bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism – between June and July 2023, sometimes during school hours. On it he exchanged messages with a woman who said she was a mother of daughters aged five and nine. In these messages Brown graphically described sexually abusing a child.
He had asked if she had given her daughters “special mummy time” and had access to “her toys”. He asked if the girls had watched porn and said they could be introduced to him as a “friend from work”.
He talked about sexually abusing them while the mother would “watch/support/encourage” them.
Brown also told the woman in explicit terms how he had been involved previously with another mother and how he had sexually abused her three children.
After his arrest, the teacher claimed he thought it was “all fantasy” and that Person A’s children did not exist.
But when she started talking about them “it made him think twice” and he contacted her to say it was a “mistake” to be in touch.
He said he had intended to remain friends with her but when he heard “real children” in the background while talking to her he thought it was “insane” and blocked her.
After his arrest, he told police he had made up the story of the mother and her three children and that he “would never consider harming a child”.
A search of Brown’s devices revealed no evidence of other conversations of a similar nature.
The revelations came to light after the former head was found guilty of unacceptable professional misconduct by a hearing of the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) in November.
He was also found guilty of bringing his profession into disrepute.
Despite the accusations against him, the hearing heard character witness statements including one from a colleague.
One person wrote to the panel: “I agree that he acted unwisely and without rational perspective but I don’t believe he has ever, or would ever, harm another human being, including a child.”
Another wrote: “I believe that Paul is safe to work with children” adding that “Paul has spent his life helping children” and is a “good man who has had his life’s work taken away by this very sad affair”.
The conduct panel heard how, despite the nature of the conversation Mr Brown had with Person A, he did not report the profile to the website or contact the police despite being aware that children were at “risk of sexual abuse”.
Brown did not attend the TRA hearing but wrote a letter and a statement to it dated October 2025.
In them he admitted to “large parts of the allegations facing him” but claimed he had “fabricated” parts of his conversations to “encourage Person A to open up and tell him more about what she was planning to do”.
The TRA hearing heard from a witness who said that when the police decided in December 2023 not to take any further action against Mr Brown, they initiated an internal investigation at the school.
This had involved speaking to police and Person A.
At a disciplinary meeting in January 2024 Brown claimed he had been “unknowingly speaking to an undercover police officer, and that they spoke about abuse and a shared experience when he was a child”.
He said that he had then messaged the person saying he did not want to talk any more, and that he had then been arrested.
Brown also claimed at the meeting that it was Person A who spoke about sexually abusing her children. But he thought “she was making it up and did not suspect a child was involved”.
He told the meeting that his conversations with Person A were a “one off” and he had been in a “bad place mentally”.
In his statements to the TRA hearing he claimed he had been abused himself as a child and that his conversations with her had been a “response to a dark, morbid and intense fascination” which had been caused by “unresolved post-trauma and poor state of mental and physical health”.
A Bransgore Church of England Primary School spokesperson said: “The safety and wellbeing of all pupils is our absolute priority. Any safeguarding concerns relating to staff would always be treated extremely seriously and, as we have done on this occasion, we would always act to ensure the most appropriate course of action is taken, following all necessary processes and working with relevant agencies as required.”
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletter by clicking here