Mr Reuben Adams

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

Teacher's name: Mr Reuben Adams

Teacher reference number: 9462216

Teacher's date of birth: 21 April 1972

Location teacher worked: Doncaster, South Yorkshire

Date of professional conduct panel: 18 November 2025 to 21 November 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 Reuben Adams formerly employed in Doncaster, South Yorkshire

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 Reuben Adams: Professional conduct panel outcome Panel decision and reasons on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education November 2025 2 Contents Introduction 3 Allegations 4 Summary of evidence 5 Documents 5 Witnesses 5 Decision and reasons 6 Findings of fact 6 Panel’s recommendation to the Secretary of State 13 Decision and reasons on behalf of the Secretary of State 18 3 Professional conduct panel decision and recommendations, and decision on behalf of the Secretary of State Teacher: Mr Reuben Adams Teacher ref number: 9462216 Teacher date of birth: 21 April 1972 TRA reference: 19776 Date of determination: 20 November 2025 Former employer: Sunninghill Preparatory School, Dorchester Introduction A professional conduct panel (“the panel”) of the Teaching Regulation Agency (“the TRA”) convened on 18 to 20 November 2025 by way of a virtual hearing, to consider the case of Mr Reuben Adams. The panel members were Ms Lucy Childs (teacher panellist – in the chair), Mr Adrian Meadows (teacher panellist) and Robert Della-Sala (lay panellist). The legal adviser to the panel was Helen Kitchen of Blake Morgan LLP, solicitors. The presenting officer for the TRA was Zahra Evans of Capsticks LLP, solicitors. Mr Adams was not present but was represented in his absence for part of the hearing, by Mark Rose of the NASUWT. The hearing took place in public and was recorded. 4 Allegations The panel considered the allegations set out in the notice of hearing dated 6 August 2025, as amended in the course of the hearing. It was alleged that Mr Adams was guilty of unacceptable professional conduct and/or conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute, in that: 1a. While employed as a mathematics teacher at Sunninghill Preparatory School, he in or around April 2020 and/August 2020, was in possession of up to 20 indecent images of children; 1b. On or about 29 January 2021, he accepted a police caution for possessing an indecent Photograph or Pseudo-Photograph of a child on 11 April 2020, contrary to the Criminal Justice Act 1988 s.160. 2. While employed as a teacher at Lockyer’s Middle School, in or around February 1997, he failed to maintain appropriate professional boundaries with respect to Pupil A, in that he sent Pupil A:- a. a Valentine’s Day card b. an inappropriate handwritten message (within the card detailed at Allegation 2a) 3. His conduct as set out in allegation 1a and/or 2a and/or 2b was sexually motivated. Mr Adams made a partial admission to allegations 1a and 1b in that he admitted to being in possession of one category C image and admitted to being cautioned for possession of that one image. As this was an equivocal admission the panel treated it as a denial. Mr Adams admitted allegations 2a and 2b. Mr Adams made an admission to allegation 3 in relation to allegation 1a, on the same basis that 1a was admitted. He denied allegation 3 in relation to allegations 2a and 2b. The admission to allegation 3 was treated as equivocal and so the panel treated this part of the allegation as denied. Mr Adams admitted unacceptable conduct and/or conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute in relation to allegation 1a and 1b and 3 as it applied to allegation 1a, on the same basis on which he had admitted those allegations, and also admitted unacceptable conduct and/or conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute in relation to allegations 2a and 2b. Mr Adams denied unacceptable conduct and/or conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute in relation to allegation 3 as it applied to allegations 2a and 2b. 5 Summary of evidence Documents In advance of the hearing, the panel received a bundle of documents which included: Section 1: Chronology, anonymised pupil list and List of key people – pages 1 to 6 Section 2: Notice of proceedings and response – pages 7 to 42 Section 3: Statement of Agreed Facts – pages 43 to 47 Section 4: Teaching Regulation Agency witness statements and documents – pages 48 to 118 Section 5: Teacher Documents – pages 119 to 151 In addition, the panel agreed to accept the following: - A TRA Admission of evidence application bundle which included the further supplemental statement of Witness A dated 7 November 2025 and its exhibits, and, emails relating to the circumstances of its production (16 pages). - A TRA submission in relation to the admission of the further supplemental statement of Witness A dated 7 November 2025 (3 pages). - An email from Mr Adams’ representative dated 17 November 2025 (and earlier linked emails) confirming that Mr Adams was not proposing to attend his hearing and was content for the case to proceed in his absence and that Mr Adams’ representative was proposing to attend, although not throughout the entirety of the hearing (4 pages). - A skeleton argument on behalf of Mr Adams which, [REDACTED], included his account and comments upon the issues concerned in the allegations, his responses to the allegations, and his mitigation (5 pages). The panel members confirmed that they had read all of the documents within the bundle, in advance of the hearing and the additional documents that the panel decided to admit. In the consideration of this case, the panel had regard to the document Teacher misconduct: Disciplinary procedures for the teaching profession 2020, (the “Procedures”). Witnesses The panel heard oral evidence from the following witnesses called by the presenting officer: 6 Witness A - [REDACTED] Witness B - [REDACTED] Witness C - [REDACTED] Decision and reasons The panel announced its decision and reasons as follows: The panel carefully considered the case before it and reached a decision. The School is an independent school with pupils from nursery to Year 8. On 1 September 2011 Mr Adams was employed as Head of Mathematics at the School. He taught mathematics to Years 6-8. He also taught games to Years 5-8 and had a role as co-curricular organiser organising activities for pupils on a Friday afternoon for senior pupils. On 25 August 2020 Mr Adams was arrested by Dorset Police having received a report from the National Crime Agency in relation to an image of a child. On 26 August 2020 Mr Adams made a self-referral to the Headteacher of the School about his having been arrested and questioned by the police. This self-referral led to a review of Mr Adams’ personnel file at the School which brought to light that minutes of a Dorset County Council multi-agency meeting, held in March 2021, recorded that he had sent a Valentine’s Day card to Pupil A in February 1997. On 15 January 2021 Mr Adams’ employment at the School came to an end. On 29 January 2021 Mr Adams accepted a police caution for the offence of possession of an indecent image of a child in 2020. On 1 February 2021 a referral in relation to Mr Adams was made to the TRA. Findings of fact The findings of fact are as follows: 1a. Whilst employed as a mathematics teacher in Sunninghill Preparatory School, you, between 11 April 2020 and 25 August 2020, were in possession of up to 20 indecent images of children; Mr Adams accepted in the statement of agreed facts that he worked as a mathematics teacher at the School from 1 September 2011 to 15 January 2021. 7 The panel noted Mr Adams denied the allegation of being in possession of 20 category C indecent images of children but admitted to being in possession of one category C indecent image of a child. Mr Adams contended that he had consistently admitted the allegation to the TRA on this basis, and, had taken responsibility for his actions. In the statement of agreed facts before the panel Mr Adams had agreed the following: • The police had received a report from the National Crime Agency that on 11 April 2020 a user of an Imgur account (Imgur being a social media site used for sharing images) had “uploaded” a Category C indecent image of a child to the internet. • That the police conducted an investigation and identified that the user of the account was Mr Adams • That Mr Adams was arrested at his home address on 25 August 2020. A search was conducted and an Apple iPhone and iPad were seized. • The teacher was interviewed by the police. The teacher stated that during lockdown he started using Pornhub and ended up on a site called Imgur. He chatted to some people and obtained some images of clothed girls 16 plus years old and that he did not consider them sexual although he accepted obtaining the images for sexual purposes. He stated that he regretted looking and that he was not sexually interested in children. He confirmed that the browsing took place on “his tablet” and that the only child search term used would be “teen”. The panel heard evidence from Witness A, whom it found to be an honest and credible witness, who gave thoughtful and measured responses to questions. The panel noted from the evidence of Witness A that the initial referral to the police had been for one image. After Mr Adams had been arrested his iPhone and iPad had been examined and 84 images found, 64 of which were considered and deemed not to be illegal. However, 20 images were classified as being category C indecent images of children. Of these 20 images 9 were unique and the remaining images were duplicates of the 9 unique images, for example, as thumb nails. It was Witness A’s understanding that duplicate images may have been produced by the iPad itself. Witness A stated that he was 100% certain that the 9 unique images were indecent category C images. He explained to the panel that the categorisation of images, including the identification of the ages of the children in the images, was undertaken by specially trained officers who went through a very formal analysis and categorisation process for each image categorised. The panel noted that