Mr Karl Smith

The Secretary of State does not make these decisions themselves. They are made by a senior official on the recommendation of an independent panel.

Teacher's name: Mr Karl Smith

Teacher reference number: 1160587

Teacher's date of birth: 30 June 1980

Location teacher worked: Banbury, South East England

Date of professional conduct panel: 23 to 25 June 2025

Outcome type: Prohibition order

Notice is hereby given that, in accordance with The Teacher's’ Disciplinary (England) Regulations 2012, a professional conduct panel was convened to consider the case of Mr Karl Smith, formerly employed in Banbury, South East England.

Teacher misconduct

Ground Floor, South

Cheylesmore House

5 Quinton RoadCoventryCV1 2WT

Email TRA.Casework@education.gov.uk

Telephone 020 7593 5393

Information about regulating the teaching profession and the process for dealing with serious teacher misconduct.

Mr Karl Smith: Professional conduct panel hearing outcome Panel decision and reasons on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education June 2025 2 Contents Introduction 3 Allegations 4 Summary of evidence 5 Documents 5 Witnesses 5 Decision and reasons 5 Findings of fact 6 Panel’s recommendation to the Secretary of State 16 Decision and reasons on behalf of the Secretary of State 19 3 Professional conduct panel decision and recommendations, and decision on behalf of the Secretary of State Teacher: Mr Karl Smith Teacher ref number: 1160587 Teacher date of birth: 30 June 1980 TRA reference: 21541 Date of determination: 25 June 2025 Former employer: The Warriner School, Banbury Introduction A professional conduct panel (“the panel”) of the Teaching Regulation Agency (“the TRA”) convened on 23 to 25 June 2025 by way of a virtual hearing, to consider the case of Mr Karl Smith. The panel members were Mr Paul Hawkins (lay panellist – in the chair), Ms Aruna Sharma MBE (teacher panellist) and Mrs Kristen Hughes (lay panellist). The legal adviser to the panel was Mr Ben Schofield of Blake Morgan LLP. The presenting officer for the TRA was Mr Tom Phillips, instructed by Kingsly Napley LLP. Mr Smith was not present and was not represented. The hearing took place in public and was recorded. 4 Allegations The panel considered the allegations set out in the notice of hearing dated 26 September 2024. It was alleged that Mr Smith was guilty of unacceptable professional conduct and/or conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute in that whilst working as a Teacher at The Warriner School, Banbury: 1. In respect of Pupil B, he: a) Set up a messaging system which the school were not aware of and/or had not approved, in order to exchange messages with Pupil B; and/or b) Provided Pupil B with his personal mobile phone number and/or personal email address; and/or c) Exchanged messages with Pupil B via Whatsapp; and/or d) Asked Pupil B to delete the Whatsapp messages exchanged between them; and/or e) Sent Pupil B messages on his school email account and/or via Whatsapp, during school holidays and/or in the evenings and/or at weekends. 2. He engaged in inappropriate and/or overly familiar communications with Pupil B via: a) The messaging system at School that he set up between him and Pupil B; and/or b) His School and/or personal email accounts; and/or c) WhatsApp. 3. He did not observe professional boundaries in that he shared personal information about himself with one or more pupils, as outlined in Schedule A. 4. He did not observe professional boundaries in that he: a) hugged Pupil B; and/or b) hugged Pupil F 5. He engaged in the conduct referred to at paragraphs 1 and/or 2 and/or 4a above when he knew, or ought to have known, that Pupil B was a vulnerable pupil. 6. He made inappropriate comments to and/or about Pupil D in that he said it was good that it was a non-school uniform day as it meant that people could see how beautiful she was, or words to that effect. 5 7. His conduct at paragraphs 1 and/or 2 and/or 6 above was sexually motivated. 8. His conduct as outlined in paragraph 1d above was dishonest. [REDACTED] In his response to the TRA’s allegations, Mr Smith admitted all the allegations apart from 1(a), 2(a) and 7, which he disputed. Mr Smith accepted his admitted conduct would amount to unacceptable professional conduct and conduct that could bring the profession into disrepute. Summary of evidence Documents In advance of the hearing, the panel received a bundle of documents which included: Section 1: Chronology and anonymised pupil list – pages 4 to 7 Section 2: Notice of hearing and response – pages 8 to 20 Section 3: Teaching Regulation Agency witness statements – pages 21 to 41 Section 4: Teaching Regulation Agency documents – pages 42 to 500 Section 5: Teacher documents – pages 501 to 504 The panel members confirmed that they had read all of the documents within the bundle, in advance of the hearing. Witnesses The panel heard oral evidence from the following witnesses called by the presenting officer: • Witness Y – [REDACTED] • Witness Z – [REDACTED] No witnesses were called on behalf of Mr Smith. Decision and reasons The panel announced its decision and reasons as follows: The panel carefully considered the case before it and reached a decision. 6 Mr Smith was employed as the Head of Computing at the Warriner School (the “School”) from September 2018. The School is a comprehensive secondary school in North Oxfordshire with approximately 1,600 pupils on role. It is part of the Warriner Multi Academy Trust. Mr Smith’s subject teaching duties included pupils throughout Key Stages 3 to 5 and he was also a form tutor. On 23 November 2022, Pupil A raised a concern about communications she had seen between Mr Smith and Pupil B, to her own form teacher, who in turn reported the concern to the School’s Designated Safeguarding Lead (“DSL”) the following day. As a result of the disclosures, the DSL informed the School’s Executive Headteacher and the Local Authority Designated Officer. The School began its own investigation and Mr Smith was suspended whilst it was undertaken. Following the disciplinary hearing on 11 January 2023, the School made a referral to the TRA on 21 February 2023, which has resulted in this hearing. The panel heard oral evidence from Witness Y, who is the Executive Headteacher at the School and CEO of the Trust. Witness Z acted as the investigator for the School’s investigation. As part of her investigation, Witness Z obtained a number of screenshots taken from Pupil B’s phone and emails from the School’s system. She also had statements from Pupil B, Pupil D and interviewed Mr Smith as part of the investigation. The panel also heard evidence from Witness Z, who is a Deputy Headteacher and the DSL at the School. As set out in the preliminary applications sections, none of the pupils appeared as witnesses at this hearing and their accounts were before the panel in the documentary evidence. Although Mr Smith was not present at this hearing, the panel had the benefit of a written statement provided by him and his response to the notice of hearing, which set out his position on the various allegations. The panel did not draw any evidential adverse inference from Mr Smith’s failure to give oral evidence at this hearing. Findings of fact The findings of fact are as follows: 1. In respect of Pupil B, you: a) Set up a messaging system which the school were not aware of and/or had not approved, in order to exchange messages with Pupil B; and/or Before the panel were a number of screenshots apparently taken from a mobile phone, which showed a number of written messages between a user called “Karl Smith” which later changed to “2Karl Tessier-Ashpool” and “[Pupil B]”. The messages were dated from 19 October to 30 October 2022. 7 Witness Z explained in her evidence that these screenshots were from a phone application called ‘Discord’. This was a type of messaging application which was not used or approved by the School. She was also not aware of any use of the application by Mr Smith for educational purposes. Witness Z further stated that the School had various processes in place for the approval of the use of software within the School, and Mr Smith was familiar with those processes. In the response to the hearing notice, Mr Smith indicated that he denied this sub- allegation. In his statement, Mr Smith stated he refuted the “allegation that a separate communication system was set up for the sole intent of communicating with [P]upil B”. He further stated that he did use applications such as Discord during the Coronavirus pandemic as a tool to aid his teaching during that disruptive time. He stated that his only intention was to use such applications for educational purposes but did accept that as time went on professional boundaries with their use began to erode, albeit he denied having any contact with Pupil B on that platform as she was not taught by him. The panel noted the screenshots included a username matching Mr Smith’s name and the content of the messages were in keeping with the topics Mr Smith was having in other messaging platforms. Furthermore, there was no evidence before the panel of any wider use of the Discord system with other pupils for any educational purpose. In reviewing the content of the messages themselves, the panel noted that none of the messages attributed between Mr Smith and Pupil B on Discord related to any educational discussions and that the opening message from Mr Smith was “This you?” which appeared to show he was seeking Pupil B out on this platform. Accordingly, on this evidential picture the panel was satisfied it was more likely than not that Mr Smith had set up a Discord chat service with Pupil B in order to contact her and the School had not approved nor was aware of the contact. Therefore, the panel found this sub-allegation proved in full. b) Provided Pupil B with your personal mobile phone number and/or personal email address; and/or In Pupil B’s statement to the School’s investigation, she stated that: “At some point I was talking to [Mr Smith] in Computing, and he seemed very sad, he gave me his personal email on a piece of paper and told me not to tell anyone… We emailed back and forth for a few weeks, until he gave me his phone number on 30 th October in which I added and he messaged me on Whatsapp” In the Discord screenshots, there was a message dated 30 October 2022 from Mr Smith which read, “[redacted] if its easier BTW.” 8 In the investigatory interview with Mr Smith on 8 December 2022, Mr Smith was noted as saying: “A regretful decision is that I gave her my personal email address, I genuinely can't remember the content of the conversation, it was gener