Maple Ridge teacher used school computers, phone for porn and sex chat

A former Grade 4 Maple Ridge teacher who used the school's phone to make late-night calls to sex chat lines, and used school computers to access porn, has been found guilty of professional misconduct.

• Read Hankey reasons for findings

Darren Lea Hankey also admitted to forging the school principal's signature on report cards and claiming sick leave four times to attend court hearings on a domestic abuse charge.

Porn on school computers

Hankey started working in the district in 2000. An investigation was launched in 2013 after a female co-worker discovered her school laptop had been used to access swingers' websites. The co-worker was worried students were responsible for the inappropriate use.

The decision found Hankey had removed the computer from a locked cabinet in his co-workers classroom and had taken it home over the 2012 Christmas break. 

Hankey was also found to have used his own school issued laptop "to store and access approximately 200 explicit sexual images of himself and others."

Hankey had told the school district that his school laptop had been stolen from his car while he was at the Skagit casino over the 2013 Christmas break, but that was found to be untrue. Hankey also falsely reported the theft of the laptop to the Skagit police.

Late night sex chat on school phone

In April of 2013 another teacher notified the district of a blog which "referred to the respondent using the school for phone sex." The decision found Hankey had accessed the school late at night on approximately 35 occasions to make the calls.

In May of 2013 Hankey was placed on paid leave of absence after being advised he was under investigation for "using school phones during the evening for phone sex and participating in pornographic videos and photography."

Missing student records

A teacher on call took over his class only to find there was a large number of missing report cards and permanent records for Hankey's students spanning a number of years.

Another investigation was launched which found, amongst other things, that Hankey had forged the signature of the school principal on a number of report cards.

Hankey was fired from the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows School District in 2014. The panel is awaiting a submission from B.C.'s commissioner for teacher regulation before issuing a penalty.

With files from Canadian Press