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A famed music teacher and organist at Eton College has been banned from teaching for life after he used his work laptop to look for inappropriate pornographic material, including using the search term “gay little boys”.
David Goode, 52, who has performed at the Proms and released Bach’s complete organ works, was suspended in December 2021, three days after Eton’s IT system flagged inappropriate searches.
The Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA), conducting a subsequent investigation, found Mr Goode had conducted 229 searches, including for terms such as “cute thai littel [sic] boys”, “Algerian gay boys” and “gay little boys”.
Mr Goode was arrested on suspicion of possessing and distributing indecent images of children, but the police later dropped the charges due to insufficient evidence.
Mr Goode later admitted that his searches were sexually motivated, acknowledging his behavior as professional misconduct capable of bringing the teaching profession into disrepute.
In a letter to a colleague following his suspension, Mr Goode expressed deep regret over his actions. He formally resigned from Eton College before an internal disciplinary hearing could be conducted in April 2022.
Eton College, an elite boarding school, fully supported the decision to ban Mr Goode from teaching.
The TRA panel, after reviewing the evidence, noted that Mr Goode had been previously warned in 2017 for attempting to access pornography via the school’s IT network.
Despite Mr Goode’s remorse and steps to address his behavior, the panel concluded that the severity of his misconduct warranted a lifetime ban without the possibility of review.
“In the light of the panel’s findings against Mr Goode,” the panel wrote, “there was a strong public interest consideration in the safeguarding and wellbeing of pupils and the protection of other members of the public.”
The decision-maker for the secretary of state for education, David Oatley, endorsed the panel’s recommendation, stating that Mr Goode’s conduct significantly undermined public trust in the teaching profession.
The panel highlighted that Mr Goode’s actions breached multiple professional standards, including the duty to uphold public trust and maintain high standards of ethics and behavior both within and outside school.
The panel emphasised that teachers have an influential role in students’ lives and that misconduct of this nature seriously damages the profession’s reputation.
Mr Goode, an Eton alumnus himself who graduated from Cambridge, had been with the school since 2005.
