A teacher who was found half-naked in a parked car with a teenage pupil
could be back in the classroom in just two years.
Eppie Sprung Dawson, 27, admitted having sex with Matthew Robinson
– who
was 17 at the time of the offence – and was found ‘unfit to teach’ by a
disciplinary panel.
Although the English teacher was placed on the sex offenders’ register
after admitting her wrongdoing in court and has now been banned
indefinitely from her profession, she can apply to be reinstated to the
teaching register in two years.
Last night, the teenager’s mother said Sprung Dawson had been given
little more than a ‘slap on the wrist, not a punishment’.
Sheree Robinson, 44, added: ‘If she is potentially allowed to go back to
teaching after two years, what is to stop her from doing something like
this again?
‘She should not be allowed to teach again, in my family’s view. I think
this comes back to double standards and you have to wonder if she were a
male teacher whether the door would be left open for her to teach
again.
‘She should not be allowed to teach children of any age ever again as
she clearly has problems which caused what happened with my son.’
Sprung Dawson was just four years into her career when she seduced the
dyslexic teenager after offering extra help with his lessons.
They were caught having sex in the front seat of her car in a layby
after she had driven the boy out to the countryside from a school dance
that they had both attended.
A passing police patrol spotted condensation on the car windows, and
when officers approached they saw Sprung Dawson and the boy naked from
the waist down. The teacher lost her job at the Catholic St Joseph’s
College in Dumfries, southern Scotland. Her three-year marriage to her
lecturer husband Ranald – the 32-year-old son of the former Solicitor
General for Scotland Lord Dawson – also ended.
Mr Robinson, now 18, has since moved out of his family’s farmhouse in
Dumfries and in to the shamed teacher’s marital home in the Scottish
market town. Studying joinery, he has told his mother and father,
Jonathan, 45, that he is just friends with his former teacher.
The Robinsons have previously accused Sprung Dawson of ‘buying’ their
son with gifts such as Xbox computer games and rugby shirts.
They told the Daily Mail in September that they believed the couple had
been having sex for up to four months before they were caught.
Mrs Robinson said she did not believe her son’s claim that he was no
longer sleeping with his former teacher.
Sprung Dawson, who is now said to be working in a bar, was struck off by
the General Teaching Council For Scotland (GTCS) in Edinburgh. She was
not present at the hearing, but in a statement read to the GTCS panel,
she agreed to being struck off and admitted having sex with Mr Robinson
four days before Christmas last year