A RUTHIN teacher who admitted he had not followed his head’s advice not to put himself in a vulnerable position by being alone with girl pupils has been cleared of unacceptable professional conduct.

The Fitness to Practise Committee of the Education Workforce Council heard that Mathew Jones had received two warnings to be careful and he accepted that he had been unwise to put himself at risk of unfounded allegations.

Jones, who taught chemistry at Ysgol Brynhyfryd for six years until he resigned in 2016, faced six allegations which, according to presenting officer Cadi Dewi, individually and together, constituted unacceptable conduct but the panel found that none of them reached that threshold.

The first allegation, dating from 2012, was that he made an inappropriate lewd remark about a colleague at a staff social event. He denied it and the committee found it not proved as there were too many inconsistencies in the evidence.

The committee heard that it had been decided that he was considered too immature and “unsafe” to deliver a lesson on safe sex and relationships but he went ahead, even though it was duplicating a lesson already given by another teacher.

The allegation was found proved, but committee chairman Peter Owen said they were not satisfied that Jones had been told he should not teach it or that he knew it had already been covered.

Earlier, the former head of Ysgol Brynhyfryd, Eleri Jones, said she had twice advised Jones to ensure that he did not put himself in a vulnerable position where he could be subject of “malicious allegations”.

He admitted two allegations of being alone with girls when it was inappropriate to do so, but again the panel found the incidents did not reach the threshold of “unacceptable professional conduct”.

On the first occasion Jones, a Welsh lacrosse international who set up clubs in the school and town, was seen in a storeroom with a girl after a lacrosse match, he later admitted he should have told her to leave when they were left alone while storing equipment, and on the second occasion he gave two girls a lift to a match.

One of the girls was a pupil at Ysgol Brynhyfryd and the parents of both had given their consent, but while he was out of the car they took a selfie of them in his car and forwarded it to another teacher.

The chairman said: “He realised he should not have left the phone where the girls could access it. It was a careless oversight on his part. Also, there were two pupils in his car and at no time was he alone with a single pupil.”

Jones admitted two further allegations of delivering a module allocated to another teacher and failing to follow the correct sequence of lessons, but said he had done so innocently.