A TEACHER who tricked his school out of £15,000 has been banned from the profession for the rest of his life.

History teacher Thomas Bisset, 48, had already been prosecuted for fraud after lying about the number of children going on school trips at St Hild's Church of England School in Hartlepool so he could defraud money from the school.

He enacted the con while head of year in the period between November 2011 and April 2014.

His position meant he was able to overstate the number of children going on a trip and then keep the extra money the school paid out for trips.

The teacher of 21 years was found guilty of fraud at Teesside Crown Court in August, 2015 and sentenced to 12 months imprisonment, suspended for 24 months and was ordered to pay a £100 victim charge.

The court was told that he had debts of £40,000 and was under severe financial stress.

Concerns were first raised in 2014 when Bisset was discovered by the school to have charged 27 pupils £40 for trips to Flamingo Land near Pickering in North Yorkshire but paid less per student to attend.

He used the extra money to buy more tickets which then sold for profit. After the discovery it was found he had used the same scam going back to 2011.

In mitigation the judge agreed with Bisset's defence that he "was not living the high life" and had been under very severe stress.

He was sacked from St Hild's, a specialist engineering secondary school, at the time of the guilty verdict but the National College of Teaching and Leadership's disciplinary panel has held its own investigation in Coventry, hearing that Bisset was also cautioned for common assault in 2008. A 1999 drink driving offence was not considered relevant.

After hearing the evidence the panel decided that Bisset should be banned from teaching indefinitely. He has 28 days to appeal the decision. He will also be entitled to apply for a review of his ban in 2020.

Jayne Millions, the decision maker on behalf of the secretary of state for Education Nicky Morgan, has published her verdict based on the panel's recommendation.

She said: "Mr Bisset's conviction for fraud, which was carried out in his role as a teacher, was a serious breach of his position of trust.

"The seriousness of his actions was highlighted by the fact that his conviction passed the custody threshold, though his prison sentence was suspended for 24 months."

A former student of the school who left in 2008 and declined to be named, said Bisset, who he said had a strong Scottish accent and had been at the school his entire career, was "a good teacher" and the allegations had come as "a huge surprise."

The student said he had raised a lot of money for Hartlepool hospital in a series of sponsored walks over many years.