A HEAD teacher and assistant head teacher of a special school have been banned from teaching after failing to tell police that a teenage girl had "been forced to undertake a sexual act " by her boyfriend, a panel has heard.

Kevin Boyle, 61, head teacher of Oaklands School in Winsford, and assistant head Brendan Maguire, 47, failed to take appropriate action after the pupil and her mother made the allegations.

Both teachers appeared before a panel of the Teaching Regulation Agency last month.

The agency's professional conduct panel has just published its report and found that both men had failed to report a safeguarding concern about a 14-year-old girl to the police or the local authority.

The girl's mother told Mr Maguire in January 2015 that her boyfriend "had forced her to undertake a sexual act against her wishes".

Mr Maguire, failed to report this to the authorities despite recording the disclosure as "an allegation of inappropriate sexual coercion" on a form days later.

He also spoke to the school counsellor about the disclosure.

Mr Boyle, awarded the OBE in 2016 for his 'extraordinary work' in teaching, also failed to report the allegation despite being made aware of it by the school counsellor.

The report states: "Mr Maguire was in a key designated safeguarding role. He was an experienced teacher who had been trained in safeguarding. The head teacher relied on him as a senior leader.

"Despite this, he allowed a serious incident to go unreported and this demonstrated a cavalier attitude to safeguarding policies and procedures.

"He by-passed good safeguarding practice by wrongly applying his own judgement on a clear and significant safeguarding matter.

"Mr Maguire chose to deal with the matter internally as a pastoral issue."

Although the head teacher admitted he had overall responsibility for all safeguarding issues at the school, he failed to take any substantial action.

The panel said: "Mr Boyle was a very experienced headteacher and associate Ofsted inspector who had undergone safeguarding extensive training and he should have been fully aware of his responsibility to implement and monitor proper safeguarding procedures.

"There was no referral made by the school to the local authority or the police."

The panel found that Mr Boyle has shown true regret, remorse and insight into what happened.

"Mr Boyle had engaged in depth with the investigatory process," the report stated. "He has had an unblemished and outstanding career.

"He fully accepted the events occurred on his watch and genuinely reflected on how he would prevent such an incident happening again.

"He accepts that he should have implemented and monitored more robust safeguarding systems. He has demonstrated real integrity in accepting his shortcomings and addressing how he would ensure they would not recur."

However, the panel felt the facts are too serious for any other outcome than banning the pair from teaching.

Alan Meyrick, who took the final decision on behalf of education secretary Damien Hind, approved the panel's recommendation.

He said: "I am particularly mindful of the finding of failure to protect a vulnerable pupil in this case and the impact that such a finding has on the reputation of the profession.

"It is necessary to impose a prohibition order to maintain public confidence in the profession.

"Mr Boyle knew of the serious concerns of inappropriate sexual acts having taken place with a 14-year-old vulnerable pupil and did not ensure appropriate action was taken.

"Mr Maguire has a previously good record, but, crucially, in the panel's view, has not properly accepted responsibility for his actions and failed to show any genuine insight into his own responsibility in relation to this serious incident."

Both teachers are banned from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, youth accommodation or children's home in England.

Oaklands School has been asked for a comment