The General Council of Education of Scotland (GTCS) heard a litany of complaints about Alexander Lamont, who attacked a 17-year-old girl in his last year of school with inappropriate touching and sleazy comments, sent graphic messages from his personal email account and on social media, and compared to her on the dating app Bumble.
He had been a South Lanarkshire Council employee but was understood to have been sacked when the allegations first came to light in 2019.
The watchdog heard that when the girl expressed concern about their interactions, Lamont told her that no one would believe him and that he was making “drama out of nothing.”
He further said that there would be gossip about the girl and asked how her mother, who also worked at the school, would react.
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Findings from an investigation into Lamont’s behavior after hearing that S2 pupils, aged 12 and 13, told their teacher it would be “inappropriate” to have a relationship with the girl, who was volunteering as a teaching assistant at her classroom.
In class, in front of the young students, he asked the adolescent about her sexual experiences, if she had a boyfriend and if she had suffered any sexual assault.
Lamont said, also in front of the S2 class, that the girl was “glamorous and beautiful” and touched her neck, shoulders and elbow. On another occasion she touched his sides and his leg.
The incidents, which began in August 2018, escalated when he gave the girl his personal email address and Snapchat details in October of that year and began sending her graphic content.
While repeatedly saying during the correspondence that their exchanges were “inappropriate” and calling the teen his “little secret,” Lamont continued to send multiple sexualized messages, photos, and a video.
He told the girl it was a “tease” and to delete her emails and not take screenshots of her Snapchat messages while asking her to send him indecent pictures of herself.
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When the school held a Halloween dance, Lamont made sexual suggestions about the girl’s costume, asking her to wear it to class, and asking her to do his makeup.
In February 2019, the teacher matched the teen on the dating app Bumble and sent her more suggestive messages, including saying, “You won’t be long until you’re a big girl.”
It was heard at the hearing that although there was no physical contact between the student and the teacher, the girl believed she was in a relationship with Lamont and when he mentioned his girlfriend, she was upset.
When she told Lamont that he was using her and that he had hurt her, he replied “Don’t fuck this again”, or words like that, and told her to stop being dramatic.
That same month, when the girl threatened to report him, he told her he wouldn’t believe her, saying, “How would your mom feel if she found out about her perfect little princess?”
The court also heard that Lamont had provided his personal email address to students in his fifth-year class.
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The GTCS panel said his behavior was at the “high end of misconduct” and said Lamont, who did not present a defense at the hearing, showed no insight or willingness to remedy his behavior.
He added that “there was a probability that it would be repeated.”
A witness, a former head of the English, Drama and Literature department at the teachers’ college, told the hearing that Lamont started at the school as a trial student in August 2017 and was named a fully qualified teacher in 2018.
The witness said that while “[Lamont] confident and popular with students, he had occasion to address their teaching methods and apparent arrogance.”
A second witness told the hearing that the girl had come forward because she “felt used by the teacher as a ‘sex object’ and was concerned that she would act in a similar way with other students.”
The report details that: “[The witness] stated that while he had thought the teacher was ‘an excellent teacher’ prior to the events, he had no doubt that student A had told him the truth and that the teacher’s behavior ‘made him very uncomfortable’.”
It adds: “She discussed specific details of the messages Master sent to Student A, which included advising her not to tell her mother about their relationship, explicitly detailing what she wanted to do to her, and that over time Master’s tone had changed Become of a more threatening nature, seeking to prevent and warn Student A not to speak to anyone regarding their relationship.
She spoke to Master having invited Student A to her home and providing her address. [The witness] talked about student A’s opinion that she was in a relationship with the teacher, like her boyfriend.”
A spokesman for South Lanarkshire Council said: “The individual has been removed from his position following an inquiry into allegations of inappropriate conduct towards a pupil and is no longer a council employee.
“We take note of the GTCS findings.”