A former primary school headteacher has been permanently barred from the teaching profession after engaging in disturbing conversations about child abuse with a woman he met on a fetish website.

Paul Brown, who served as the safeguarding lead at Bransgore Church of England School in Christchurch, Hampshire, resigned from his position in April 2024, citing “personal reasons” for his departure.

However, it has come to light that Brown was arrested in July 2023 under suspicion of being a paedophile, although no charges were ultimately filed against him.

During the months of June and July 2023, Brown frequented the BDSM website Fetlife, even accessing it during school hours.

Through this platform, he exchanged messages with a woman claiming to be the mother of two young daughters, aged five and nine.

In these exchanges, Brown provided explicit descriptions of child abuse, an act that has since led to his lifetime ban from teaching.

The teacher asked if she had given her daughters ‘special mummy time’ and had access to ‘her toys’. 

He also asked if the girls had watched porn and said they could be introduced to him as a ‘friend from work’. 

Paul Brown, the former head of a CofE primary school in Hampshire, has been banned from teaching for life 

Brown talked about sexually abusing them while the mother would ‘watch/support/encourage’ them. 

He told the woman in explicit terms how he was involved previously with another mother and how he had sexually abused her three children.

After police arrested him, Brown claimed he thought it was ‘all fantasy’ and that Person A’s children did not exist.

But when she started talking about them ‘it made him think twice’ and he contacted her to say it was a ‘mistake’ to be in touch.  

He said he intended to remain friends with her but when he heard ‘real children’ in the background while talking to her he thought it was ‘insane’ and blocked her.

After his arrest, Brown told police he  made up the story of the mother and her three children and that he ‘would never consider harming a child’.

A search of his devices revealed no evidence of other conversations of a similar nature.

The revelations came to light after the former head was found guilty of unacceptable professional misconduct and bringing his profession into disrepute by the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) in November. 

Despite the accusations against him, the misconduct panel heard character witness statements. 

One person wrote to the panel: ‘I agree that he acted unwisely and without rational perspective but I don’t believe he has ever, or would ever, harm another human being, including a child.’   

Another wrote: ‘I believe that Paul is safe to work with children’ adding that ‘Paul has spent his life helping children’ and is a ‘good man who has had his life’s work taken away by this very sad affair’.

Brown left Bransgore Church of England school in April 2024 for ‘personal reasons’, but it has now emerged that he was arrested in July 2023 as a suspected paedophile – although he was not charged. The abuse has not been connected to the school (pictured)

The conduct panel heard how, despite the nature of the conversation Brown had with Person A, he did not report the profile to the website or contact the police despite being aware that children were at ‘risk of sexual abuse’.  

Brown did not attend the hearing. In a letter and a statement to the panel dated October 2025 he admitted to ‘large parts of the allegations facing him’. 

But he claimed to have ‘fabricated’ parts of his conversations to ‘encourage Person A to open up and tell him more about what she was planning to do’.

A witness began an internal investigation at the school when police decided in December 2023 not to take any further action against Brown. This involved speaking to police and Person A. 

Brown claimed at a disciplinary hearing in January 2024 that he had been ‘unknowingly speaking to an undercover police officer, and that they spoke about abuse and a shared experience when he was a child’.

He said he then messaged the person telling them he did not want to talk anymore – and that he had then been arrested. 

Brown also claimed that it was Person A who spoke about sexually abusing her children. 

But he thought ‘she was making it up and did not suspect a child was involved’.

He told the meeting that the conversations were a ‘one off’ and that he had been in a ‘bad place mentally’. 

In his statements to the TRA, Brown claimed he abused himself as a child and that the conversations with Person A had been a ‘response to a dark, morbid and intense fascination’ which had been caused by ‘unresolved post-trauma and poor state of mental and physical health’.

He also said he was under ‘personal and professional pressure’ at the time. 

The TRA hearing found that Brown had not ‘evidenced any understanding of the fundamental risks his actions posed towards children’. 

A Bransgore Church of England Primary School spokesperson said: ‘The safety and wellbeing of all pupils is our absolute priority. 

‘Any safeguarding concerns relating to staff would always be treated extremely seriously and, as we have done on this occasion, we would always act to ensure the most appropriate course of action is taken, following all necessary processes and working with relevant agencies as required.

‘Following the conclusion of our own response, we referred this matter to the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) in line with the standard processes. 

‘The TRA is responsible for considering an individual’s suitability to continue teaching and conducted its own investigation in line with this remit, before publishing its own independent findings.

‘We are satisfied to see that the outcome of this investigation reflects the seriousness of the individual’s conduct.’