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The Independent

Teacher banned after asking pupil to take bikini photos on holiday

A teacher who inappropriately touched multiple schoolgirls and asked for pictures of one of them wearing a bikini has been banned from teaching. Kieran Harker, an IT teacher, was found guilty of inappropriate behaviour towards eight pupils during 14 months of employment at Newmarket Academy in Newmarket, near Cambridge. A panel found the 30-year-old guilty of 'misconduct of a serious nature which fell significantly short of the standards expected of the profession'. He has been banned from teaching indefinitely, with the right to have the prohibition order reviewed in two years. Three pupils spoke in evidence against him and were all anonymised for the report. One pupil said: 'Kieran Harker became very touchy with me. He would often touch my back through the hole in the school chair. I used to sit right behind him in the classroom. 'I would be facing the computer, doing my work, and he would walk up behind me and put his hand through the back of the chair to stroke my back. I do not know why he did this. I was not upset, so he was not doing it to comfort me.' She said she asked him to stop, which he did at the time, but he resumed touching her at a later date. Another pupil, who was in Year 9 at the time of interacting with Mr Harker, alleged the IT teacher 'put his hand on my lower back in very unnessicery [sic] situations, like just walking past me…' A third pupil said Mr Harker 'rubbed my back and my thigh' outside one of his classrooms. 'I felt uncomfortable,' the pupil said. 'It has happened more than once.' When questioned about the allegations, Mr Harker said: 'I have never touched a student's thigh or lower back. But it is a natural reaction when someone is upset for me to touch the top of their back to console them, but I have never touched the lower back.' He was also found guilty of placing his hand on the upper thigh of at least two students. Another student, identified only as Pupil E, reported multiple instances of inappropriate behaviour by Mr Harker. In one instance, he grabbed her by the waist; in another, he wrote the words 'love you' in her planner. She described both events as making her feel uncomfortable. He also sent her inappropriate emails, including requesting that she show him bikini photos. 'I was going on holiday and I was anxious about how I looked. I was emailing Kieran Harker about it and then I spoke to him about it the next day,' she said. 'He told me to have fun and take photos of myself in a bikini to make me feel better. I thought it was an odd comment, but as we were on the topic of me being self-conscious, I thought he maybe did not mean it in a weird way. 'When I returned from holiday, Kieran Harker asked if I had taken any photos in a bikini. I said no, and Kieran Harker said that he had been looking forward to seeing the photos.' She also stated that she believed Mr Harker wanted the pictures for himself and that she felt 'weirded out' by the request. He responded to the accusations by saying: 'I never asked to see pictures of her in her bikini, I asked to see photos from her holiday.' In a separate email exchange with another student, he wrote: 'I saw you across the playground and thought how lovely you looked! Had to tell you immediately.' That email was then shared among pupils. Mr Harker, defending himself, claimed this message was intended to help the girl feel better about her appearance. The report added that during a school disciplinary hearing, he had said: 'On reflection, I recognise that any form of contact is inappropriate with a student and that I wholeheartedly regret this and would never do it again.'