Scottish schoolteacher sacked for viewing porn sites in class

London, Mar 17 (ANI): A Scottish teacher has been sacked for surfing porn websites while teaching a class of 13-year-olds.

Dr Jeremy Dobson, a Physics teacher at one of country's leading fee-paying schools, used to access restricted websites that featured pictures of naked and half-naked women.

The teacher, at Robert Gordon's College in Aberdeen, even took a memory stick containing pornographic images from his home to use on school computers during class time.

However, the 35-year-old father of five has denied that he was trying to disguise his online behaviour from the school's IT staff by using "anonymiser" websites to mask his web history.

He claimed that one reason of his behaviour was his wife's postnatal depression.he resident of Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, also said to have checked adult pornographic sites at his home for their access suitability at the school.

And the college's IT department took notice of the incidents during a week in February 2007, after Dobson showed high levels of web activity.

On March 16, the infamous teacher appeared before a sub-committee of the General Teaching Council in Edinburgh, and received a reprimand, which will stay on his teaching record for five years.

Dobson represented himself during the questioning and admitted using the school system to access pornography.

However, in mitigation blamed pressures in his personal life.

"I'd like to accept the facts of the case and apologise for my actions. After moving to Aberdeenshire, we continually struggled with debt that caused great distress on my marriage," The Scotsman quoted him as saying.

He added: "After having our latest baby, my wife suffered from postnatal depression and I had to deal with telephone calls from her every day while I was at work.

"I received two written warnings about my attendance due to looking after my wife.

"I was stressed and needed help. I hated myself. I hurt no-one but myself and my family, and there were no child protection issues."

Issuing the official reprimand, Tom Kirk, the chairman of the panel, said: "Both charges have been proved and the standards fall short of what is expected of a teacher.

"The public interest would not be met with your removal from the teaching register. It was a finely balanced decision and any further examples of this conduct will see harsher actions." (ANI)