Nicole Finch was jailed for 32 weeks after pleading guilty to two offences of smuggling items into a prison, including prohibited class C drugs, mobile phones and SIM cards.
Finch, 32, a former teacher at Newbury Independent School in Birmingham, also admitted to making off from a petrol station without paying and several driving offences in separate incidents.
A Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel found Finch’s conduct between 2015 and 2021 to have fallen “significantly short of the standards expected of the profession.”
A report published after the hearing detailed how the 32-year-old was convicted in March 2021 at Leicester Crown Court for smuggling packages into a prison in February 2019.
Although pleading guilty, Finch claimed she had been pressured into bringing the items into the prison.
However, the judge who ruled on the criminal case rejected this account and found her actions were financially motivated.
Before these offences, Finch was convicted in June 2015 at Birmingham and Solihull Magistrates Court after fleeing a petrol station without paying for £20 worth of fuel.
In November 2020, Finch admitted to driving otherwise in accordance with a licence and without insurance, having a driving licence in another person’s name to use in the course of a fraud and obstructing a police officer and was convicted at Worcester Magistrates Court.
When she was stopped by police for driving without a licence or insurance, Finch pretended to be someone else by using a bogus licence, the report said.
Finch was disqualified from driving as part of her sentence, however, was later convicted the following year of driving whilst disqualified and with no insurance.
She pleaded guilty in November 2021 at Kidderminster Magistrates Court to driving without insurance and before her driving ban had expired.
Finch told the panel that she had been driving between “sites at the school where she was working at the time”.
Finch admitted to all the allegations made against her and that they “amounted to convictions of a relevant offence”.
The panel said that although most of Finch’s convictions occurred “outside the education setting”, they considered her behaviour could “affect public confidence in the teaching profession”.
The report said although Finch admitted to the allegations and expressed remorse, the panel considered that she did not “reflect more widely on the impact they might have on pupils, parents, colleagues, and wider public confidence”.
As a result of the hearing which took place in December 2024, Finch was banned from teaching, a decision which she can appeal after five years.
Sarah Buxcey, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, considered the panel’s findings and found Finch’s actions to be “serious as they include a finding of a series of offences of fraud and serious dishonesty, supply of illegal substances by taking them into a prison, and serious driving offences”.
Newbury Independent School where Finch was formerly employed, claimed that despite her initial employment checks being found to be “satisfactory”, after two months it came to light that she had been “dishonest” in her disclosure of information to the school.
As a result, she was “was referred by the school to the relevant external agencies”, the school said.
The school also said that since the appointment of a new senior leadership team, they have had two Ofsted inspections in which all safeguarding independent standards were met.
Newbury Independent School added that during the most recent inspection on January 8 this year, the inspector audited the situation regarding Finch and found their process and actions to be “satisfactory”. The report from this inspection has not yet been published.