Man used fake qualifications to get job teaching science at secondary school

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A man got a job at a school after lying about being a qualified teacher.Adrian Ferguson was a science teacher at Cardiff West Community High School in Ely for months before it emerged that he had made a series of false claims in his application.

Mr Ferguson applied for the job in 2020 and claimed that he had no criminal matters pending against him. He then started working at the school that September but a month later the school had yet to receive his Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) certificate, reports Wales Online.After the October half-term Mr Ferguson finally provided the school with a copy of the certificate, which revealed that while working for another school, Peak Academy in Gloucestershire, he was involved in a 2019 incident that had led to a police investigation.It emerged that Mr Ferguson was awaiting trial over a charge of encouraging violence between two Peak Academy pupils aged 13 and 15, who were alleged to have "engaged in a physical fight in his presence".When Cardiff West headteacher Martin Hulland called him in for a meeting about the issue in early November 2020, Mr Ferguson claimed the incident had been "blown out of proportion", that it was a "witch hunt", and that the court case would be a "formality".In December 2020 Cardiff West allowed Mr Ferguson to have time off work due to the criminal case.In February 2021 the case was dropped as the Crown Prosecution Service said that there was not enough evidence for "a realistic prospect of a conviction".But Cardiff West suspended Mr Ferguson in March 2021 and appointed an independent investigator to look into why he had not disclosed the police investigation and court case when applying for the Cardiff job."Mr Ferguson acknowledged that he should