A former PE teacher at a Birmingham primary school accused of slapping a girl on the bottom, making another do push-ups in front of the class, and writing personal letters to girls at his former school, has told a professional conduct hearing he had no “desires” towards children.
Timothy McMahon, who resigned from Audley Primary in Stechford after being suspended in March 2006, faces charges of inappropriate behaviour towards female pupils at Audley and former school, Bromford Junior.
After giving evidence to a reconvened hearing of the General Teaching Council’s conduct committee in Birmingham, he must wait to see if he is struck off.
Mr McMahon is accused of behaving inappropriately by engaging in personal correspondence with girls at Bromford Junior and encouraging them to write to him, following his move to Audley.
He is charged with repeatedly being alone with female pupils at Audley between March 2003 and March 2006 against advice, and filming a PE lesson without consent or authorisation and keeping images on his school laptop.
He faces allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards girls at Audley. These consist of grabbing a girl around the middle and pushing her into a chair, kicking a girl on the bottom outside a classroom, making a girl do push-ups in front of the class, touching a girl on her thigh and shoulders during a bus trip, and slapping a girl on the bottom and getting her to feed him a banana.
Mr McMahon, speaking in his defence for the first time after the hearing began in October, denied claims he kicked, slapped or touched any pupils.
He said the push-ups were a “light-hearted punishment” for the girl being late for a maths class.
The letters, he added, were to let pupils at Bromford Junior know how he was getting on in his new school, but he made the “mistake” of writing to two girls who responded. Mr McMahon, who no longer teaches, denied “hand picking” girls for lunchtime duties so he could be alone with them, and said the filming of sports day was done in the open, often with senior members of staff. He added: “I don’t have any desires towards children, and girls in particular. I can see I was naive and used bad judgement but that’s as far as it went.”
