A BNP activist has been banned from teaching for life after he drove his car at children who had been verbally abusing him at a St George’s Day fun day.

The national College for Teaching and Leadership initially banned Adam Walker from teaching for two years, but the Secretary of State for Education has overruled their decision and given him a lifetime disqualification.

Mr Walker, who taught in Japan for six years before returning to his native Spennymoor in County Durham, said he could not afford to appeal the ban.

He said he accepts his behaviour was wrong and needed to be punished but claims the Secretary of State has a personal vendetta against him due to his political beliefs.

Mr Walker said: “Clearly the secretary of state has an axe to grind.

“I was dealt with first by the courts, then the teaching council and accepted their decisions, but the Secretary of State has overruled all that.

“When I compare the punishments given to other teachers, including proven paedophiles and the like, what’s happened to me seems totally disproportionate.”

Mr Walker, who taught for 20 years and runs a successful karate club, received a six month suspended prison sentence and was banned from driving for 12 months after he admitted dangerous driving at Durham Crown Court.

The incident occurred at a St George’s Day fun day being held in Tudhoe, near Spennymoor in 2011.

Mr Walker was verbally abused by three boys aged 12, 11, and 10, and chased them in his car before slitting the tyres on their bikes with a Stanley knife, the court was told.

Recorder Ben Nolan described Mr Walker’s actions as extremely dangerous and said the teacher could have killed the boys had they fallen.

When banning him from the classroom for two years, the teaching council said: “He had been provoked but his reaction failed to meet up to the high standard expected of a teacher both in and out of school.”

In his judgment for the Secretary of State’s office, Alan Meyrick said: “Mr Walker’s convictions involved threatening behavior and criminal damage of a serious nature aimed at children.

“The reputation of the profession would be seriously damaged by allowing a teacher with this combination of convictions to be able to teach again.”