Teacher struck off after picking up boy at gay bar

A TEACHER at a city school who picked up a 15-year-old schoolboy at a gay bar has been struck off.

Music teacher Stephen Atkins, who taught at the city’s Drummond Community High School, met the boy at CC Blooms nightclub in Edinburgh and invited him back to his nearby flat.

The teacher, who was 50 at the time of the incident in 2008, drank wine with the boy and cuddled him before going to bed. The boy, a pupil at another Edinburgh school who cannot be named for legal reasons, said that when he woke up the next morning he was lying naked next to Atkins, who was also unclothed.

The matter was reported to police after teachers at the boy’s school became aware of what had happened.

Officers working in Lothian and Borders’ Amythest Team, which deals with child protection, interviewed Atkins, but were unable to charge him due to a loophole in the law at the time which meant consensual sex with males aged 12 to 16 was not a criminal offence.

Atkins did not attend the disciplinary hearing of the General Teaching Council for Scotland yesterday where he faced a charge of acting in an inappropriate and unprofessional manner.

The hearing in Edinburgh heard evidence from two detective constables who interviewed the pupil and Atkins.

Atkins admitted to police he had taken the boy home but claimed he had gone to bed fully clothed and had not engaged in sexual activity with him.

Detective Constable Andrew Dick, who interviewed the boy, who is now 19, said: “[The pupil] felt he had been sexually assaulted.”

The boy said he had been celebrating a friend’s birthday earlier in the night, before ending up at CC Blooms.

In a statement to police the boy said: “I reckon I either got extremely drunk or my drink was spiked. I’m not sure.

“I woke up in a double bed beside this guy who was all grey and hairy. He turned round and said good morning. He didn’t tell me his name. He said I had come back to his.”

The boy added: “I said I am 15 and this is totally illegal.

“He was very cuddly in the morning. I was saying I was 15. He was like, that’s fine.”

Robbie Burnett, lawyer for the GTCS, told the panel the only option was to strike Atkins from the register as “his conduct fell below the standard expected of a registered teacher”.

The panel decided that, because Atkins had known the boy was still at school, he should be struck from the register.