A former Shropshire school teacher has been banned from teaching indefinitely after being found possessing child pornography.

Peter Godfrey who worked at the now closed White House School in Whitchurch was banned for life from teaching by the Teacher Regulation Agency after being convicted of having extreme pornography including material involving children.

Godfrey worked as a teacher at the school from September 2012 up until his arrest on May 5 2020.

He admitted that any indecent images of children found on his electrical devices belonged to him, by the August Godfrey had ceased employment at the school.

He was convicted on three charges including  “three counts of Making Indecent Photograph or Pseudo-Photograph of Children”, “one count of Possession of Extreme Pornographic Images - of Intercourse/Oral Sex with Dead /Alice Animal” and “one count of Possess Prohibited Images of Children”.

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Godfrey was sentenced on September 8 2022 to 150 hours of unpaid work, a rehabilitation requirement and a concurrent custodial sentence of eight months (for all offences listed in allegations 1 to 3), suspended for two years.

However, after this in October 2022 Godfrey was arrested again after left the area to go to a seaside town, and used a laptop and a memory stick to “download and retain indecent images of children”.

The disciplinary panel report said this “demonstrated Mr Godfrey’s tendency to repeat the behaviour and a clear disregard for his initial serious convictions”.

For this second offence Godfrey was sentenced on 2 March 2023 to a total of 16 months imprisonment.

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In summing up, the chair of the panel Sarah Buxcey said: “In my judgment this could demonstrate a lack of full remorse or insight and there is some risk of repetition of this behaviour and this puts at risk the future wellbeing of pupils.

“In my view, it is necessary to impose a prohibition order in order to maintain public confidence in the profession.

“Mr Peter Godfrey is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England.

“Furthermore, in view of the seriousness of the allegations found proved against him, I have decided that Mr Godfrey shall not be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach.”