A TEACHER has been banned from the classroom for life over an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old girl – who he told he wanted to run away with.

David Fenwick, 44, kissed the teenager at her school prom and went on to send her explicit messages and take her out in his car to perform sex acts.

Some of the messages to the girl, known as ‘Pupil A’, included a rude stick man picture and him miming the words to the song ‘I Will Always Love You’.

A panel from the National College of Teaching concluded the history teacher from Hartlepool, who taught at Oxclose Community Academy in Washington, Tyne and Wear, had “used his professional position as a teacher to influence or exploit Pupil A to encourage her to enter an inappropriate relationship with him”.

It heard that he had suggested he would leave his partner for her so they could run away together and that she “believed that he loved her”.

The list of incidents included allowing her to nibble his ear for a photo, him pointing at her breasts and making inappropriate comments about them and continuing the relationship after she had left school.

He would also take her out in his car, where they “would perform oral sex on each other”.

The panel heard evidence from pupils that regarded him as “less professional” than most teachers in the school and he “frequently breached the boundaries of the usual pupil-teacher relationship”.

They were told he would make lots of jokes with pupils and would make inappropriate remarks, some of which contained sexual innuendo.

And in the 14 years he spent at the school, they were told he had been approached informally up to four times for not maintaining professional boundaries with students

Chairman Michael Lesser said: “In all the circumstances it is more likely than not that the purpose of Mr Fenwick’s words and actions were sexually motivated.

“It was clear to the panel that Mr Fenwick abused his position of trust as a teacher.

“He targeted a vulnerable pupil who was aged 16 at the time.”

He added: “In the panel’s view, Mr Fenwick demonstrated a blatant disregard for his duty of safeguarding and protecting Pupil A’s well-being.”

The situation had remained a secret until the former pupil told a teacher at a careers event two years later.

Banning him from teaching for life, the panel said he would be “prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England.”