A teacher at a Shropshire public school who filmed a student having sex in his room during a school trip has been banned from teaching.Former Shrewsbury School teacher Michael Clarkson, who is in his 30s, has been struck off the teaching register with immediate effect following a decision by the General Teaching Council’s conduct committee in Birmingham.

Mr Clarkson was yesterday told his behaviour amounted to unacceptable professional conduct during the trip to Portugal in 2006. He will be ineligible to apply to register as a teacher for at least four years.

The former tennis master and classics teacher admitted condoning a 17-year-old pupil in his care to engage in sexual intercourse in a bedroom allocated to him by not discouraging the act.

He also admitted taking pictures of and setting up a video camera to record the pupil while in the bedroom and failing to apply and enforce reasonable curfews for students.

The committee found that Mr Clarkson had allowed students to consume excessive amounts of alcohol. It also found the teacher had been under the influence of alcohol on the final night of the trip.

Today the step-father of the pupil involved, who comes from Shrewsbury, said he felt the committee’s decision should have been more severe.

He added: “To my mind this bloke should be completely out of the system and should never be in a role which takes him close to children again.

“We went to see Daniel Kawczynski MP and he is going to raise it in the House of Commons.”

Dr Kirit Modi, chairman of the committee, said members agreed the only suitable punishment was a prohibition order.

Dr Modi said: “This was an appalling failure of judgement and totally alien to the concept of pastoral care and supervision that is expected of teachers.”

The committee said it had accepted it was a “single episode” during an otherwise unblemished 12-year career at the school.

Jeremy Goulding, headmaster of Shrewsbury School, said: “The member of staff involved was dismissed following a hearing.”

Mr Goulding said that he had nothing further to say about the incident.

By Russell Roberts