A DISGRACED former Stroud teacher who went on the run to Paris while he was on bail for stalking his estranged wife has admitted fraudulently obtaining teaching posts.

Timothy Bailey was captured by the police, who had been tipped off by the Border Agency, earlier this month after landing in a small aircraft at Goodwood airfield in West Sussex.

A warrant had been issued for his arrest when he failed to appear at Warwick Crown Court in April last year.

Bailey, 50, who lived in Doncaster at the time was then remanded in custody after a judge was told he was now facing other matters as well.

And at a further hearing at the court he pleaded guilty to five charges of fraud and one of stalking his estranged wife Trudy Bailey.

The court heard that over a period of just over three years Bailey gave false information to obtain employment at three schools, a college and a university.

He had been banned from teaching for life by the General Teaching Council in 2014.

That had resulted from him failing to disclose he had convictions for benefit fraud and a caution for bigamy when applying for work and claiming to be a registered teacher when I fact he was serving an earlier ban imposed in 2008.

The fraud charges he is now facing included fraudulently obtaining work at Wycliffe College in Stroud in February 2011 and at the Jewish Community Secondary School in New Barnet, London, in June 2013, while subject to that earlier ban.

Then in April 2014 he again provided false information by failing to disclose his life ban to obtain work at Kingham Hill School in Chipping Norton, from where the General Teaching Council in January that year said he had previously been dismissed.

Later that year he did the same to obtain further work, first at St Edmunds College in Ware, Hertfordshire, and then at the University of Bedfordshire.

After he had entered his guilty pleas to those charges, his barrister Nicholas Smith pointed out he also needed to be arraigned on the stalking charge, for which he had failed to turn up at the court in April last year.

Bailey then pleaded guilty to stalking Trudy Bailey between November 2012 and August 2014, causing her serious alarm or distress, by sending numerous e-mails, making phone calls and monitoring her through concealed Wi-Fi cameras.

He denied a charge of a dissimilar nature on a further indictment that was put to him, and prosecutor Nicholas Berry said he needed to discuss that with Crown Prosecution lawyers before a decision is made on whether to seek a trial on that matter.

Asking for the case to be adjourned until that decision has been made, Mr Smith said he was not asking for a pre-sentence report, conceding: “It’s going to be a sentence of imprisonment.”

Judge Abbas Mithani QC agreed to adjourn sentencing on the fraud and stalking offences, and remanded Bailey in custody. At the previous hearing, following the execution of the warrant for his arrest, Bailey admitted failing to surrender to custody in April last year without reasonable excuse.

Simon Rippon, prosecuting at that hearing, said that after Bailey failed to turn up at the court, ‘it emerged that he was living and working in Paris.’ With the assistance of the French authorities, who helped to track him down, the process of applying for a European arrest warrant was under way – and due to be heard in Paris this month.

But when Bailey flew back to this country in a small aircraft, landing at Goodwood airfield, the police knew he was due to land and were there to arrest him.

“He returned with a small carrier, under the radar, and did not return to hand himself in, but for other reasons,” Mr Rippon observed.

Of Bailey’s failure to attend court, Mr Smith said: “The reason he did not attend is, he says, because he had some form of nervous breakdown, and he went to Paris to get away from his previous partner, and has been having, on and off, hospital treatment since then.”