A teacher has been banned from the profession after being found to have looked at indecent images of very young children.

Carrick Tanton admitted he looked at the images and videos at least once a week since he was a teenager.

The computer science teacher, who worked at Hayesbrook School in Brook Street, Tonbridge, was arrested in October 2020 after an IP address linked to his home was used to access the images.

KentOnline understands the 32-year-old has not been charged or is currently part of a live investigation. Kent Police said it couldn’t comment on the matter.

Tanton was suspended by the school, which was run by the Brook Leigh Trust at the time, a day later and then dismissed three days after that.

A misconduct hearing ruled his actions amounted to unacceptable professional conduct and brought the profession into disrepute.

Evidence heard by a panel revealed Tanton worked at the school between July 2019 and October 2020 and appeared to show no remorse for his actions.

He told police in an interview he would look at images of children around 16 years old on the dark web and masturbate to them. He also admitted looking at indecent images of “extremely young children”.

The panel made a recommendation to the Secretary of State to ban Tanton from the profession and prevent him from rejoining.

A document from the hearing revealed Tanton even made observations he could not guarantee reoffending. The report said: “Although Mr Tanton appeared to demonstrate some insight into his actions, the panel was not satisfied that there was no risk of repetition.

“Mr Tanton openly expressed this in his personal statement to the panel, stating “there is no reasonable way to say, with 100% certainty, that I – or any person having committed such offences - does not pose a risk to children.”

It continued: “The panel did acknowledge that Mr Tanton had expressed some insight into his actions, including through his admissions to the police and by a statement provided to the panel.

“However, the panel did not consider that Mr Tanton expressed any remorse for his actions. The panel also acknowledged that the police report suggested that Mr Tanton had sought help to address his behaviour; but no evidence of this was presented to the panel.

“On the evidence presented, the panel concluded that Mr Tanton’s actions were deliberate. There was no evidence to suggest that Mr Tanton was acting under extreme duress and, in fact, the panel found Mr Tanton’s actions to be calculated and motivated.

“There was no evidence to support that this behaviour was out of character, and Mr Tanton’s own admission was that he had been accessing indecent images for a number of years and on a weekly basis.”

The school is now run by the Leigh Academies Trust (LAT) which took over a year after Tanton was fired.

A spokesman said: “The safeguarding of children is a priority in all of our schools and whilst this incident occurred before the school joined the Trust we support the decision that the Teacher Regulation has reached to prohibit Mr Tanton from returning to teaching.”