Drinking downfall of barred teacher

A teacher has been banned after four drink-driving convictions. Photo / Thinkstock

Drink-drive convictions and breach of home detention too much for tribunal

An alcoholic teacher who cut off her home detention monitoring bracelet while serving time for her fourth drink-driving conviction has been banned from teaching.

Jane Barron, who is in her mid-50s, was referred to the Teacher Disciplinary Tribunal last year after two drink-driving convictions in 2009.

In the first incident she was stopped at a checkpoint for a compulsory breath test which showed she had 1124 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath - nearly three times the limit of 400.

Nearly a month later, while she was on bail and her driver's licence was suspended, police stopped her after she tried to avoid a checkpoint. She was again over the limit, this time blowing 490mcg.

The drink-driving convictions followed two other, in 2005 and 2007, and Barron was sentenced to 12 months' home detention and disqualified from driving for 10 years.

During that sentencing Barron's lawyer said she had been battling a long-term depressive disorder after losing her father to suicide.

The judge warned her that she would be off to Mt Eden Women's Prison if he heard about her putting "a hand on a can or a glass" again.

But the Papamoa woman managed to get herself into even more trouble while serving her sentence, prompting a second complaint to the teacher's tribunal this year.

Police said Barron was contacted by her probation officer in August last year during a routine check and sounded as though she was drinking.

The officer went to visit at midday but Barron, who was slurring her words, refused to let her in. After locking the doors and windows she yelled out that the officer could "take her to jail".

She admitted to police, who arrived soon after, that she had been drinking.

On another occasion authorities arrived at her home after receiving an alert that her ankle monitoring bracelet had been cut off.

Her excuse was that the anklet was too tight.

She was also caught leaving her home outside approved times, without a reasonable excuse.

Barron wrote to the tribunal saying she accepted responsibility for her actions, had stopped drinking and was attending counselling and weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

She went on to say she had been an "enthusiastic knowledgeable child/family centred teacher and wouldlike the opportunity to continue teaching".

But in its decision the tribunal said Barron's convictions were so serious - especially breaching the conditions of her home detention - that she was not fit to be a teacher.

It did, however, say that in the "fullness of time" when she was able to "demonstrate conclusively that she had overcome her alcohol problem" that an application for re-registration might be considered.