Drink-drive Baughurst teacher who fled crash banned

A former assistant headteacher who drove a car into a home while over the drink-drive limit before fleeing has been banned from the profession.

David Zell, 37, worked at the Hurst School in Baughurst, Hampshire, when he drove into a ground-floor bedroom, where two people were asleep, on 17 March 2022.

Those people suffered minor injuries and the car left a “substantial hole” and caused “serious structural damage to the property”, the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) said.

Zell was banned from driving for a year by magistrates in May 2022 but the TRA found there was only “some evidence of limited remorse” from him.

Zell fled the scene but later contacted police to report the incident.

He said he had “blacked out and crashed his car into a wall”.

Zell initially denied drink-driving but said he drunk alcohol after returning home.

Police arrested him and found he exceeded the limit with 57 micrograms of alcohol in 100ml of breath – the legal limit is 35 micrograms.

He later admitted failing to stop after a collision and driving a motor vehicle with excess alcohol at Reading Magistrates’ Court. Zell was told to complete 120 hours of unpaid work and fined £400 on 23 June 2022.

He started working at the school in September 2020 and left in July 2022.

The TRA said during an investigation undertaken by the school, Zell acknowledged the incident was “of course not good” but that he had accepted that he would face the consequences.

“I now realise how serious it is, it has seriously harmed by career as a teacher, possibly irretrievably, and this is a matter of deep regret and distress,” he wrote.

But the TRA said that was not evidence of “sufficient insight or an objective understanding of the nature and gravity of his misconduct”.

The agency’s David Oatley banned him from teaching for at least five years.

Once that period has elapsed, he must apply to have the ban removed.