Teacher who headbutted special school pupil indefinitely banned

Craig Embrey attacked the teenage child as the victim was walking down the road and singing after leaving a gathering at an address near the teacher’s Birchwood home.

The now 33-year-old was spared jail in July 2021, when he appeared at Liverpool Crown Court to be sentenced over a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

He was handed a nine-month community order, including 90 hours of unpaid work, and ordered to pay the 16-year-old victim £900 in compensation.

Embrey was the subject of a Teaching Regulation Agency professional conduct panel hearing this month, brought about by his conviction.

The hearing heard how he was previously employed as a business studies teacher at the Connell Sixth Form College in Cornwall, having taken the job in August 2017.

He was first accused of assault on January 18, 2020, and was interviewed by the police the next day.

This came after the events of the evening of January 18, when at around 8pm the victim and a friend were part of a number of youths congregating outside a house on Greenfinch Grove in Birchwood.

A party was being held near the home of Embrey when the two teenagers left singing. By this point, the police had been called following reports of nuisance and noise.

Officers attended and were in the process of dispersing the group when the defendant, having consumed three cans of Guinness, but not intoxicated in his own view, went out in the street rather than let the police deal with the situation.

The teens were confronted by an angry Embrey who told them to ‘shut the f**k up’, to which they replied with ‘cool it’.

The defendant’s response was to deliver a sickening headbutt to the 16-year-old victim.

Police, who Embrey had called earlier, were quickly on the scene and spoke to him, who appeared ‘extremely nervous’.

Craig Embrey was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court

He tried to blame the boys, but then ran away from the officer after giving them his name. He later returned home and police were informed.

In a victim impact statement, the teenager revealed that as well as three stitches to his lip, he was left with scarring and headaches. And was left reluctant to leave home due to anxiety.

On March 24, 2020, Embry notified the college that he had been charged by police and was suspended on May 15.

He pleading guilty to the charge on the day of his trial, before being sentenced on July 5, 2021.

The court heard on the day of sentence how Embry, who had no previous convictions, had since managed to find a new job for a pharmaceutical company.

The conduct panel considered that the teacher ‘fell far short of the standard of behaviour expected’ and in his ‘duty to act as a role model’.

Members concluded that Embrey’s actions were ‘highly likely to affect public confidence in the teaching profession’, and that confidence could be ‘seriously weakened’ if his behaviour was not treated with the ‘utmost seriousness’.

A hearing report states: “The panel was of the view that, applying the standard of the ordinary intelligent citizen, it would not be a proportionate nor appropriate response to not recommend a prohibition order.

“The panel was of the view that prohibition was both proportionate and appropriate.”

Members did however judge that Embry is ‘clearly regretful’, and the risk of repetition of the same or similar behaviour was ‘reduced’.

In doing so, they said that he could potentially make a positive impact in education should be chose to return in the future.

It was for those reasons that Embry was banned from teaching indefinitely, but with a review period set for three years.

This means that he can apply for the prohibition order to be set aside after three years, but this is not an automatic right, and it is dependent on a further panel decision.