A FORMER headteacher who was sacked for gross misconduct will face a teaching standards board on Monday.

Tim Dingle was sacked as head of High Wycombe's Royal Grammar School in April 2006 following claims in the Daily Mail. He was dismissed even though he had already resigned to take up another post.

His sacking followed unsubstantiated newespaper allegations that he had smoked cannabis seized from pupils at the Amersham Road school. Mr Dingle, 46, denied the allegations.

Next week he will appear before the General Teaching Council for England in Birmingham.

The council has not released its allegations against him.

The original claims were made by Nicky Barr, a woman claiming to be his former lover, who the Mail said Mr Dingle met on an internet dating website.

The article - published in February 2006 - also alleged Mr Dingle posed as a top London surgeon James Bunyard.

The school carried out an external investigation following the Mail's report, but would not specify why they had dismissed Mr Dingle.

At the time of the sacking, chairman of governors Andrew Higginson said in an interview with the BBC there was no evidence to back a claim by Ms Barr that Mr Dingle had used drugs taken from Royal Grammar School pupils.

But Mr Higginson said: "The findings were of sufficient seriousness to require there to be consequences. In this case, the only proper consequence of Tim's actions, in our view, was dismissal."

Present school headteacher Roy Page declined to comment when contacted by the Bucks Free Press.

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