A teacher who was head of religious education at a Merseyside college has been suspended for six months after he encouraged his pupils to plagiarise former students' work.
The General Teaching Council (GTC), which is due to be scrapped, found the various allegations made against Leo Fallon, who taught at Haydock Sports College, to be true.
On Thursday the GTC ruled Fallon had failed to comply with the requirements of exam board Edexcel by giving his students access to work of previous students and instructing them to copy it. He then submitted the plagiarised work to Edexcel to count towards the students' final marks.
During the committee hearing, Fallon also admitted being convicted of two offences while he was employed as head of religious education at the college.
The Committee, chaired by Andrew McKinnon, determined the offences impeded on Fallon's fitness to be a registered teacher.
Mr McKinnon commented: "He failed to exercise his responsibilities in a fair and transparent way. Mr Fallon's behaviour undermines the trust that parents and schools are entitled to place in subject teachers to supervise properly and adhere to the provisions of exams schemes to which pupils are subject."
The Committee imposed a suspension order for six months after deciding the teacher would not repeat such behaviour if he was allowed to return to the classroom.
The Huffington Post has contact the college for comment but has not yet had a response.