Paedophile private tutor was allowed to CARRY ON teaching youngsters

Paedophile private tutor was allowed to CARRY ON teaching youngsters under shocking loophole in the law despite pleading guilty to molesting four victims

• Judge said he was ‘deeply concerned’ Yi Liu has been able to continue teaching
• The 63-year-old was jailed following a Daily Mail investigation last month
• It found dozens of private tutors continued teaching despite convictions
• Private tutors are not required by law to have criminal record checks to work 

A paedophile private tutor was allowed to continue teaching due to a shocking ‘lack of regulation’ in the industry, a court has heard.

A judge said he was ‘deeply concerned’ to learn that Yi Liu had still been able to teach despite pleading guilty to groping four young students.

The 63-year-old was jailed following a Mail investigation that revealed dozens of private tutors had continued working despite previous convictions.

Unlike teachers, private tutors are not required by law to have criminal record checks to work with schoolchildren.

A judge said he was ‘deeply concerned’ to learn that Yi Liu (pictured) had still been able to teach despite pleading guilty to groping four young students

Campaigners have called for all those working in the profession to undergo a mandatory Enhanced DBS background check.

Southwark Crown Court heard how Liu had taught children maths for two decades despite a previous conviction dating back to 1998.

In 2018, he was arrested and charged with groping four boys between eight and 13 years old in their family homes over the previous six years.

One 11-year-old victim told his parents that the tutor had ‘put his hands down his pants’ in his bedroom during a lesson, the court heard.

Police spoke to a further three victims, who had complained of Liu’s ‘creepy’ behaviour and ’in particular how [he] would touch them around their genitals’

Liu had been allowed to work alone with the boys in their family homes on a wealthy street, in west London where the average house price cost £1.2m.

One of the parents told officers he had been recommended and was used by a lot of families in the area.

But the court was told that despite being charged in 2018 he had continued to teach children – and was still doing so despite pleading guilty in December.

Sonya Saul, prosecuting, said Liu could have been stopped if the private tutoring profession had any ‘vetting procedure’ in place.

Instead, the onus was on ‘honesty and integrity’ of the ‘convicted person to tell the parent of the child about the fact of conviction’.

She said it had enabled Liu to ‘exploit’ the lack of regulation.

In November last year, Liu had convinced a mother with a ‘heavily edited’ version of events in order to continue teaching her teenage daughter.

She said the parent had recommended Liu as a ‘wonderful teacher’ to her friends ‘without knowing the truth’ – and there was ‘every risk she would have continued to do so’.

Ms Saul said: ‘If the defendant were a qualified school teacher, he would be subject to checks by the Disclosure and Barring Service and he would have been banned altogether from teaching on conviction’

Judge Gregory Perrin said Liu had ‘abused the trust’ of parents and had ‘offended repeatedly against multiple victims’ for many years.

He said: ‘It is of deep concern that following enquiries made by the prosecution that you’ve continued tutoring and have not made full disclosure of your offending.’

Judge Perrin sentenced to Liu to 18 months in prison on January 18.

He also imposed a sexual harm prevention order covering all children under the age of 18 following an application by the prosecution.

Barry Kogan, defending, said Liu had since accepted the incidents were ‘sexually motivated’ and that he ‘sincerely apologises’.

He asked the judge to spare Liu a prison sentence because he presently had an ‘inability to come to terms with his shame and disgrace’

He said medical reports from last year showed Liu had been diagnosed with depression and appeared to be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

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