Croydon teacher could be banned after taking upskirt pictures at all girls' school

A former educator at a Croydon convent school faces a teaching ban for taking upskirt pictures with his phone while serving as assistant headteacher. 60-year-old Andrew Corish was not convicted for the action last year after courts said it was not a criminal offence.

According to the Evening Standard, Cornish admitted the action in a witness statement to the National College for Teaching and Leadership misconduct panel which will decide whether or not to recommend a full ban or sanctions on Corish.

Corish's guilty plea for voyeurism was rejected by courts because he was not observing "a private act"; attempts to add indecent images of children charges also failed as the court decided the images were not indecent.

When questioned outside his home by the Standard, Corish would not give any further comments.

Recently, calls from victims and legal professionals for 'upskirting' – the act of taking a picture or video under someone's skirt without their permission – to be made a criminal offence led to the Justice Secretary saying he was taking advice over the issue.

Currently, the act can only be prosecuted as 'outraging public decency', which requires the incident to be witnessed by two members of the public.

After finding that two men had taken pictures up her skirts without her knowledge at a music festival, Gina Martin set up a petititon for the action to be added to the Sexual Offences Act of 2003.

"The taking of these images is a disgusting practice that can have an extremely distressing impact on victims. In addition, the perpetrator then often compounds these acts by uploading these images onto the internet," Dame Vera Baird QC said.

"The law, as it stands, is far from clear as there is no specific offence relating to the taking of pictures for sexual gratification without the victims knowledge or consent that covers this practice."