Teacher Banned From Teaching For Life Over Child-Marriage Scandal

A Physics teacher has been banned from teaching in the classroom for life after flying to Bangladesh to marry a 13-year-old girl. 

Joshim Nur claimed he thought his bride was 18 when he travelled to his arranged wedding in 2006 at the age of 22.

He first met the girl, only identified as Child A, three days before they got married in August 2006.

Child A said they had sex after their wedding night and after coming to the UK she was put on the contraceptive pill and taken to family planning clinic.

A teaching disciplinary panel heard Nur, now 34, was hired as a physics teacher at the London Nautical School in Blackfriars, Central London in June 2006.

He has now been struck off.

A Teaching Regulation Authority panel last month said Nur’s claims that he thought Child A was 18 were “not credible”.

The girl said she told him she was 13 and studying in Year 8 at school.

She also confirmed the same details when Nur’s father recorded a video of her, which she believed Nur had seen.

Child A made a complaint to the police in 2013 and underwent a clavicle bone test to confirm she was underage when they got married.

Nur maintained he was “deceived” by the victim’s family into thinking she was an adult.

The panel said: “Mr Nur now accepts that Child A was 13 years old in 2006. 

“Mr Nur does not deny that he had sexual intercourse with Child A during their marriage.”

The panel ruled he should have known she was aged under 16 because he taught at school where there were teenage girls and should have been familiar with appearance of that age.

The panel chairman Dr Robert Cawley said: “The panel did not find it plausible that Mr Nur could have mistaken a 13 year old child for an 18-year-old, and that this misconception continued over a four year period.

“The panel was particularly concerned in light of the fact that he worked in a secondary school and had daily interactions with children of this age.” 

The hearing was also told Nur was “gifted and valued member of staff” by the school’s headteacher.

But he will be banned from teaching for life.