A teacher who “pulled a sickie” to attend a friend’s stag do in Portugal later attempted to conceal his actions by ripping pages from his passport, a tribunal has found.
Joe Wilson, a Year 6 teacher at Listerdale Junior Academy in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, embarked on the clandestine trip on 18-19 May 2023 – a Thursday and Friday.
He informed the school on the morning of his flight that he had been “up all night being sick” and maintained the deception the following day, before returning to work on the Monday.
Around 5am on 18 May 2023, Mr Wilson messaged: “I’m not going to be in school today. I’ve been up all night being sick and have got a really bad headache.”
The next day, he told the same person: “I’m still no better so won’t be in school today. Can’t keep any food or water down. I’ll keep you updated.”
However, an anonymous member of staff raised the alarm after seeing photographs of Mr Wilson at an airport, holding a pint of beer.
One of the photographs which featured him was posted by another person at 5.23am on the morning of 18 May 2023 with the caption: “Early start for… stag do, few beers with the Portugal gaffer”.
Mr Wilson originally claimed the photographs were taken from a previous trip, but later admitted to the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) that he “agreed to attend a stag do in Lisbon” and he “made a huge error of judgement but (felt) the situation at the time influenced (him) to make this poor decision”.
He also told the TRA in October 2025 he “accepted full responsibility” for his actions, including “falsifying a sickness”.
In February, he emailed the agency stating he “pulled a sickie to go on (his) mates stag do”.
Mr Wilson also removed pages from his passport to hide that he had been away.
He told the TRA he “made a huge mistake of taking out a page of (his) passport” after “an informal chat with (his) headteacher” as she “encouraged (him) to show something ‘to get them off my case’”.
He also said he was “ashamed” of his actions.
An investigation report detailed Mr Wilson handed his passport to someone from the school in June 2023 and photocopies of the document revealed pages 9, 10, 27 and 28 were missing, according to the tribunal.
The panel found it proved that Mr Wilson was absent from school without a proper reason, reported to the school that he was absent because of sickness when that was not the case, and removed pages from his passport which would have contained stamps showing he was out of the country on the dates in question.
“In falsely reporting his sickness absence and providing an altered document during an investigation, Mr Wilson was intentionally misleading the school and concealing the truth,” the panel said in its judgment.
“The panel considered that Mr Wilson’s behaviour fell below the ethical standards expected of a teacher and was contrary to the manner in which the profession professes to serve the public.”
It also found his conduct lacked integrity, was dishonest, and that his actions may bring the profession into disrepute.
It was decided that a prohibition order, which would see Mr Wilson banned from teaching, was not proportionate but that publication of the findings would be enough.
