Mr Sean Murphy

The Secretary of State does not make these decisions themselves. They are made by a senior official on the recommendation of an independent panel.

Teacher's name: Mr Sean Murphy

Teacher reference number: 8563802

Teacher's date of birth: 27 November 1963

Location teacher worked: Cambridge, South East

Date of professional conduct panel: 30 June 2025 to 4 July 2025

Outcome type: prohibition order

Notice is hereby given that, in accordance with The Teacher's’ Disciplinary (England) Regulations 2012, a professional conduct panel was convened to consider the case of

Mr Sean Murphy, formerly employed in Cambridge, South East.

Teacher misconduct

Ground Floor, South

Cheylesmore House

5 Quinton RoadCoventryCV1 2WT

Email [email protected]

Telephone 020 7593 5393

Information about regulating the teaching profession and the process for dealing with serious teacher misconduct.

Mr Sean Murphy: Professional conduct panel outcome Panel decision and reasons on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education July 2025 2 Contents Introduction 3 Allegations 4 Summary of evidence 4 Documents 4 Witnesses 5 Decision and reasons 5 Findings of fact 6 Panel’s recommendation to the Secretary of State 16 Decision and reasons on behalf of the Secretary of State 19 3 Professional conduct panel decision and recommendations, and decision on behalf of the Secretary of State Teacher: Mr Sean Murphy Teacher ref number: 8563802 Teacher date of birth: 27 November 1963 TRA reference: 22092 Date of determination: 4 July 2025 Former employer: St Bede’s Inter-Church School, Cambridge Introduction A professional conduct panel (“the panel”) of the Teaching Regulation Agency (“the TRA”) convened on 30 June to 4 July 2025 by way of a virtual hearing, to consider the case of Mr Sean Murphy. The panel members were Mr Ian Hylan (teacher panellist – in the chair), Mrs Kate Hurley (teacher panellist) and Ms Sue Davies (lay panellist). The legal adviser to the panel was Mr Ben Schofield of Blake Morgan LLP. The presenting officer for the TRA was Mr Mark Millin of Kingsley Napley LLP. Mr Murphy was not present and was not represented. The hearing took place in public save that portions of the hearing (which related to Pupil B’s [REDACTED]) were heard in private. The hearing was recorded. 4 Allegations The panel considered the allegations set out in the notice of proceedings dated 28 February 2025. It was alleged that Mr Murphy was guilty of unacceptable professional conduct and/or conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute in that whilst working as a Physical Education Teacher at St Bede’s Inter-Church School (“the School”): 1. He did not maintain appropriate boundaries with pupils in that he: i. touched pupils in an inappropriate and/or over-familiar way; ii. photographed and/or video recorded pupils when not required for educational purposes; iii. asked personal questions and/or made inappropriate comments to pupils; 2. On or around 5 January 2022, he acted in an inappropriate manner towards Pupil B in that he: i. asked Pupil B to stand on a table tennis table to retrieve a ball; ii. held Pupil B’s thigh and/or waist, against her wishes; iii. looked up Pupil B’s skirt while she was standing on the table tennis table; iv. inappropriately touched Pupil B and/or stood uncomfortably close to Pupil B while she was playing table tennis. 3. On or around 30 March 2022, he used inappropriate language and behaviour whilst delivering a lesson on sexual harassment. 4. His conduct at paragraphs 1 and/or 2 and/or 3 was sexually motivated. In his written responses to the TRA, Mr Murphy denied these allegations. Summary of evidence Documents In advance of the hearing, the panel received a bundle of documents which included: Section 1: Chronology and anonymised pupil list – pages 5 to 7 Section 2: Notice of proceedings and response – pages 8 to 21 5 Section 3: Teaching Regulation Agency witness statements – pages 22 to 39 Section 4: Teaching Regulation Agency documents – pages 40 to 291 Section 5: Teacher documents – pages 292 to 301 The panel members confirmed that they had read all of the documents within the bundle, in advance of the hearing. The panel also had the following documents before it:  A ‘proceeding in the absence of the teacher’ bundle of 124 pages  An email from Mr Murphy sent to the TRA on 27 June 2025  A skeleton argument on behalf of the TRA of 24 pages Witnesses The panel heard oral evidence from the following witnesses called by the TRA:  Witness Y – [REDACTED]  Witness Z – [REDACTED]  Pupil B [REDACTED] No witnesses were called on behalf of Mr Murphy. Decision and reasons The panel announced its decision and reasons as follows: The panel carefully considered the case before it and reached a decision. Mr Murphy was employed as a PE teacher at St Bede’s Inter-Church School (“the School”) from 2013. Mr Murphy taught pupils throughout Years 7 to 11 and was also a form tutor. On 30 April 2023, Mr Murphy took early retirement from his position at the School. At this time, Mr Murphy was subject to a disciplinary investigation by the School. Following the conclusion of that process, the School made a referral to the TRA. The reason for the 2023 investigation is not subject to any of the allegations at this hearing. However, other alleged misconduct which was subject to previous investigations by the School and included in its referral are the subject of the allegations at this hearing. At this hearing, the panel heard sworn witness evidence from: 6  Witness Y [REDACTED] was the Headteacher [REDACTED]  Witness Z [REDACTED] Witness Z was asked by the School to undertake an investigation into Mr Murphy’s conduct which was undertaken in Spring 2022. As part of her investigation, Witness Z interviewed a number of pupils at the School.  Pupil B, a former pupil at the School. Pupil B [REDACTED]. In 2022, Pupil B was in [REDACTED].  Although not present at this hearing, Mr Murphy did provide an account of his position in written representations to the panel. The panel took these representations into account and where possible s ought to test Mr Murphy’s account against the available evidence. However , in the absence of Mr Murphy giving sworn evidence at this hearing, the panel was not able to assess that evidence by it being tested in cross-examination and therefore there was some limitation of the weight it attached to his account. The panel did not draw any evidential adverse inference from Mr Murphy’s failure to give evidence at this hearing. Findings of fact The findings of fact are as follows: 1. You did not maintain appropriate boundaries with pupils in that you: i. touched pupils in an inappropriate and/or over-familiar way; ii. photographed and/or video recorded pupils when not required for educational purposes; iii. asked personal questions and/or made inappropriate comments to pupils; There were no pupils or staff members who might have been direct witnesses to the facts in this allegation appearing before the panel to give oral evidence at this hearing. The only evidence available to the panel were accounts provided by teachers and others tasked with investigating Mr Murphy’s conduct who had spoken with pupils who had concerns about Mr Murphy. None of those pupil accounts before the panel had been written or signed by those pupils. Some examples of these accounts from the pupils included concerns about Mr Murphy’s conduct toward female pupils which included:  suggesting to some pupils that they should considering modelling,  asking about relationships the pupils might be in or asking inappropriate questions on topics such as abortions,7  touching pupils’ waists as he moved past them in the classroom,  filming pupils on his school iPad. Whilst such accounts plainly raised a concern and suspicion about Mr Murphy’s conduct, this panel’s function was to make evidence-based decision making. That was to adjudicate on the balance of probabilities with only admissible evidence being taken into consideration. In advancing its case, the TRA recognised these pupils’ accounts would amount to hearsay evidence. The TRA submitted that under the relevant guidance (such as set out in the case of Thorneycroft v NMC (2014)), this evidence ought to be admitted as it did not appear to be directly disputed by Mr Murphy, it would be disproportionate to seek to call these pupils as witnesses and that its admission struck a fair balance between the rights of Mr Murphy and the public interest in resolving these concerns. In considering the relevant legal guidance, the panel was not able the reach the conclusion suggested by the TRA. In particular the panel noted that: Much of the evidence was in dispute. Albeit some were simply bare denials, some included alternative explanations being advanced by Mr Murphy. The TRA advanced this allegation on the basis that it was sexually motivated conduct towards pupils. The panel recognised a finding of this nature was one of the most serious which could be made against a teacher. These were accounts provided by pupils to another, who in turn provided their recollection of what the pupils had said to them. It was therefore multiple hearsay. Witness Z was taken to the written accounts of Pupils J, F and H, which she was said to be the author of. Her evidence was that she did not immediately recognise the documents as they were not on the templates she had used in her investigation, although she said she seemed to recognise the content of the statements as being the accounts she recorded. This suggested that the accounts before the panel may have been further extracted from different documents themselves. Pupil B was also interviewed by Witness Z. Pupil B’s evidence to the panel was that she had not seen or signed the statement at the time it was taken by Witness Z. Pupil B said the first time she saw this statement was in preparation for these TRA proceedings. She described that when she gave her account she had been unexpectedly withdrawn from a lesson and was not told what she was being interviewed for beforehand. Taking these points into account, the panel was not satisfied it could be said that these pupil accounts were demonstrably reliable. The panel was also not satisfied they could be tested against other evidence before it. The TRA advanced that these accounts could be corroborated against other evidence available in the bundle. However, this other 8 evidence was also of the same hearsay nature. It would mean that hearsay evidence against Mr Murphy would be both the sole and decisive evidence against him in regard to this allegation. These factors all pointed to a conclusion th