A Scottish maths teacher has admitted to having an affair with his teenage student after his girlfriend found out that he had exchanged hundreds of flirty messages and explicit photos with the 18-year-old on his phone. The student even joked about 'fancying' the teacher school. The Scottish teacher has been identified as Ross Spittal, 31, from Bishopton in Renfrewshire.
Spittal was busted when his girlfriend Kim Smyth, 32, discovered as many as 800 flirtatious emails and the X-rated pictures. Despite having an affair with his student, Spittal maintains that he is still fit to teach at school. Moreover, he has admitted to a teaching tribunal that he had sex with the teen while his partner was away working.
Spittal formerly served as a teacher at Inveralmond Community High School in West Lothian. According to reports, during a hearing in the presence of the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) on Monday, Spittal's girlfriend revealed that she found the flirty messages on Glow, which is a pupil-teacher portal.
Spittal is contesting his right to continue teaching despite being caught exchanging hundreds of emails and NFSW photos of the teenage student via his cellphone.
Spittal, who is known to be the brother of Ross County footballer Blair Spittal, after admitting to the relationship with his student said that he believes he should still be allowed to teach. Referring to the student Spittal was having affair with, his girlfriend Smyth said: "I saw that he was searching for Pupil A on Facebook."
She further said, "He said he was feeling low about teaching and he was looking for nice messages pupils wrote about him on Facebook. He was messaging the pupil using Glow at late times. The chat and banter you'd expect with a friend. We were friendly with a lot of Ross's colleagues."
She revealed, "One Saturday night at about 2am, me and Ross were sitting in drinking and he kept looking at his phone. He was messaging Pupil A on Glow. I thought it was extremely odd behaviour," according to DailyStar.
Spittal's girlfriend also said that the day she had come across the emails on their laptop, an email from the schoolgirl popped up at the bottom of the screen. "When I opened the conversation it was happening there and then, they were planning on meeting up," Smyth said during the hearing.
But it was on May 22, 2019, when she had confronted Spittal about explicit emails of him and his student. "There were pictures of Pupil A. I was literally seeing photos of her as I was speaking to him on the phone. He asked me not to tell the police or the school," Smyth stated adding that one of the emails exchanged between Spittal and the schoolgirl read, "Kim is at work, you can come over."
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