Haverhill Rovers player Sam Hawley banned indefinitely from teaching after hearing finds him guilty of ‘unacceptable professional conduct’

A Haverhill Rovers player and former teacher at Linton Village College who asked a student questions of a sexual nature has been banned from teaching.

Sam Hawley, who joined Rovers last September from Lakenheath, having previously captained town rivals Haverhill Borough, has been prohibited from teaching indefinitely after a hearing held by a Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel.

Mr Hawley, 29, may apply for the prohibition order to be set aside, but not until February 20, 2026.

The panel found him to be ‘guilty of unacceptable professional conduct and/or conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute’ while working as a PE teacher at Saffron Walden County High School between September 2019 and April 2022.

After an investigation into Mr Hawley’s conduct had been launched on March 14, 2022, he resigned the following day.

Although Mr Hawley, who in the past worked as a PE teacher at LVC, where he had also been a student, ‘categorically’ denied all the charges, CCTV and text messages were used as evidence to support the claims against him.

The TRA panel heard charges that Mr Hawley made ‘inappropriate physical contact with Pupil A in that you hugged her’ and that he ‘frequently asked to meet her on her own and/or after school’ asked her about the breakup with her boyfriend and asked if her boyfriend had been ‘her first’ and/or if they had ‘done other stuff’.

The panel was particularly concerned that Mr Hawley had been warned by the school leadership in relation to his actions on at least four occasions.

David Oatley, the TRA decision maker, said: “The panel finds that the conduct of Mr Hawley fell significantly short of the standards expected of the profession.

“The findings of misconduct are particularly serious as they include findings of inappropriate physical contact with and comments to a pupil and meeting a pupil despite management advice not to do so.”

The panel said it was particularly concerned that a witness found Mr Hawley “in his classroom with the door and the blinds closed in the presence of two female pupils (including Pupil A) outside of school hours, despite the fact that he had been warned on multiple occasions about conduct of this nature.”

The panel’s report also commented on the ‘absence of insight shown by Mr Hawley, in addition to his overall lack of appreciation of the appropriate boundaries of a teacher’.

Mr Oatley added: “In my judgement, the lack of insight means that there is some risk of the repetition of this behaviour and this puts at risk the future wellbeing of pupils.”