Headteacher and his deputy who took £250,000 from special school are barred
Two senior teachers of special educational needs school have been banned from teaching after a panel found them guilty of ‘improper use’ of £250,000 in school funds.
Mike Turner, who joined River House School in Warwickshire as head in 2000, and Simon Constantinou, who joined as deputy in 2004, were accused of abusing their positions over a period of more than 10 years.
Alarms were raised after an employee of the school who joined in March 2015 discovered ‘potential financial irregularities’ and asked for an audit.
Constantinou, who is now over 70 years old, was suspended in May of that year, and Turner, who is now 70, retired three months later.
Both were referred to the Teaching Regulation Authority the following year.
The findings against Turner included accepting ‘overpayments’ of £36,000 of a ‘Recruitment and Retention’ allowance.
The school’s governing body approved a one-off £4,000 payment for the allowance in 2005.
But Turner continued to be paid the same amount every year until 2015, when the audit began, the panel heard.
The panel said comments Turner later gave to the TRA were ‘clear evidence’ he knew he wasn’t entitled to keep receiving the payment.
Between 2010 and 2015, he also entered into a ‘procurement contract’ to provide £180,000 worth of IT services to his own school.
The panel found the contract, which benefitted him personally, wasn’t approved by the school’s governing body and broke EU rules.
He was also found to have authorised ‘excessive and/or unnecessary claims’ for overtime payments of £174,419 and mileage expenses of £21,000 claimed by Constantinou over the years.
Constantinou told the panel he was claiming overtime for extra work ‘arising from pupils’ behaviour and staff wellbeing’.
But the panel found he was not entitled to claim for any of the work, which all ‘fell squarely under the role of a deputy headteacher’.
It added that the time he claimed for – up to 10 hours per week – was ‘beyond credibility’.
The pair were previously charged with conspiring to commit theft following a police investigation, but they were cleared in 2018 after prosecutors dropped the case.
The Teaching Regulation Authority found both guilty of unacceptable professional conduct in December.
The verdicts and details of the hearings were revealed in a report published by the Department for Education on Monday.
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