A school English teacher was caught on CCTV kissing one of her pupils in her car after he professed his love for her via email.

Rebecca Betteridge developed an inappropriate relationship with one of her teenage pupils and exchanged emails and texts with him.

The teacher, 34, who worked at a school in Crawley, was later caught on CCTV kissing the 16-year-old pupil while sat in her car during half term.

Miss Betteridge previously accepted a police caution for abusing a position of trust. She has been banned from teaching at a disciplinary hearing.

Providing the findings of the hearing in a report dated March 2024, a spokesman for the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) said: “The body language of Miss Betteridge indicated conduct of a flirtatious nature and physical contact was being made between them.

“An outside observer could have formed the impression that they were in a relationship given the proximity of their bodies, and the kissing that took place.”

Miss Betteridge began teaching at the school in July 2016 and began emailing and texting the pupil, referred to as Pupil A, in April 2019.

The pupil had previously sent an email to Ms Betteridge with the lyrics to James Arthur’s Can I Be Him, writing “You walked into the room and now my heart has been stolen”.

On May 28, 2019, an allegation was made against Miss Betteridge about her conduct towards Pupil A and a police investigation commenced.

The day afterwards, Miss Betteridge was caught kissing Pupil A when he leant into her car, parked in the school car park, and kissed her.

In a police interview, Pupil A said that it “only happened a couple of times”.

Miss Betteridge was suspended on May 31, 2019, and was sacked by the school in July 2020 having tried to resign before.

She also accepted a police caution in March 2020.

The TRA hearing, held in Miss Betteridge’s absence last month, found that her behaviour fell significantly short of the standards of behaviour expected by a teacher and amounted to misconduct.

She was banned from teaching indefinitely but can apply for the ban to be lifted in 2026.

A spokesman for the school said: "This former member of staff fell short of our very high expectations of appropriate conduct.

"We followed our clear procedures for managing safeguarding, which led to the employee being dismissed."