Teacher banned for secretly filming women in public

A primary school teacher who followed women wearing tight clothing and secretly filmed their bottoms and legs has been banned from the profession.

Andrew Winkworth was dismissed from Worlingham Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School, in Beccles, Suffolk, in September 2022.

Smartphone videos showing the 45-year-old following women around the centre of Norwich were discovered after they synced to the school's IT server.

The Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) ruled that his actions were sexually motivated and banned him from teaching indefinitely. He can appeal the decision in four years.

"The panel considered that this behaviour was serious, involved sexual misconduct, and fell significantly below the standards expected of a teacher," a report said.

Winkworth had worked at the school for 10 years, teaching Year 5 and Year 6 classes and taking on the additional responsibility of being the head of PE.

His videos, filmed between August 2020 and January 2022, were discovered in March 2022 by a colleague who was searching the school server for a performance video.

After being unable to locate the video, he looked at Winkworth's account and found "graphic videos" in his downloads folder, which had been saved to his laptop.

The discovery was raised with the head teacher before he was ultimately suspended by the school and then later dismissed.

Winkworth was also investigated by Suffolk Police's safeguarding team, which found no evidence of criminality, according to the TRA's report.

Winkworth went on to admit that he had filmed females on the street in public without their knowledge and consent, on one occasion for at least 10 minutes.

Some of the videos included footage of young females as well as women who were accompanied by children at the time.

"The act of filming women, focusing on their bottom and legs, was done in pursuit of sexual gratification and had clear sexual motivation," the TRA said.

Winkworth, who the TRA said "did not demonstrate exceptionally high standards" in his job, expressed remorse and said his actions were "out of character".

He also described his behaviour "as unusual and unacceptable" and said that he "no longer engaged in such behaviour".

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