A SCOTS teacher who was accused of sexually abusing and grooming schoolboys has been found unfit to teach by the regulatory body.
Ronald Burton allegedly sexually abused two young teens almost 20 years apart whilst employed in two secondary schools in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire.
The former assistant principal teacher was said to have given the youths gifts including bottles of Buckfast in exchange for performing different dares including touching Burton’s penis.
A former pupil said the teacher abused him between August 1994 and 1997, when he was between 11 and 14 years old, and would massage him after they attended the gym together.
And another former schoolboy, aged between 12 and 13 at the time, alleged that Burton abused him between August 2013 and June 2014.
He claims he would go to Burton’s home where the 66-year-old ex-maths teacher would perform a massage before inappropriately touching him on his rear end.
Following a General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) investigation the panel yesterday concluded that Burton was unfit to teach.
The panel will publish their final decision on whether Burton will be removed from the register in around 28 days.
Convenor Alison Reid said: “We find he is currently impaired, unfit to teach and the outcome is that teacher is found guilty of misconduct and is found to be unfit to teach.”
Gary Burton, the presenting officer for the GTCS, said: “The teacher has not engaged in the process nor shown any remorse for his actions.
“The teacher is a continued danger to the public and the risk of repetition if he was not found unfit to teach is high.
“By acting in the way that he did his actions are fundamentally incompatible with teaching.”
The hearing previously heard from one of the former pupils, known as Pupil A, who said: “Ronald dared me to stroke his penis and give it a couple of tugs.
“I freaked out.
“I was gifted Bucky for running around the car naked.
“I agreed because he got upset and said, ‘you must see what the last prize is’.
“I could see it was a bottle of Buckfast wrapped up.
“I used to get gifts from Ronald such as DVD box sets of Sopranos and boxer shorts.”
Burton had also been accused of masturbating in front of Pupil A and asking the schoolboy to do the same.
Pupil A continued: “I sat in the back seat masturbating into a condom.
“He sat in the front doing the same.
“I used a magazine, he said he didn’t need one.
“He brought out a tape measure and said ‘have you and your friends ever compared d*** sizes?”
Burton was fired by South Lanarkshire Council when the allegations first arose.
He was found guilty of abusing children and handed a six year prison term at Glasgow’s High Court in 2016.
However, he has always maintained his innocence and was released from prison early in 2017 following an appeal against his conviction being upheld.
The Crown had relied on the operation of the Moorov doctrine for conviction.
The principle means that a number of offences witnessed by only one person can be grouped together to show a pattern of behaviour and could be used in a court case.
However Lady Dorrian highlighted that the temporal gap between the offences by Ronald Burton, at its shortest, was just under 17 years.
