The headteacher of a Catholic primary school in Kensington has been struck off after spending over £56,000 on Amazon and train tickets using the school’s credit card.
Christopher McPhilemy, 47, failed to account for the ‘mistake purchases’ made over a three-year period from 2020 to 2023, spending over £16,000 on electronic supplies and almost £5,000 on train fares and Tube travel.
An investigation found that there had been no audit trail into Mr McPhilemy’s purchases and he blamed a lack of financial procedures within the Catholic primary school.
The misconduct panel heard how the headteacher transferred almost £10,000 back to the school after saying that his Apple Pay had been ‘mistakenly’ linked to the school credit card.
After it was found that £56,198 had been spent on the company card – only half of which had supporting card statements – he was struck off.
Mr McPhilemy became headmaster at Our Lady of Victories RC Primary School in Kensington and Chelsea in September 2016, and was issued a school Barclays Bank card as part of the role.
At the beginning of his headship, the bursar had been made redundant and Mr McPhilemy was left to sort out the school’s finances alongside running the school.
Following an investigation, it was found that a total of £4,612 had been spent on an Oyster card and other rail travel between June 2020 and July 2023.
Christopher McPhilemy (pictured) spent over £56,000 on Amazon and train tickets using the school’s credit card while headteacher
An investigation found that there had been no audit trail into Mr McPhilemy’s purchases and he blamed a lack of financial procedures within the Catholic primary school
During the same period, £16,758 had been spent on a range of supplies – including Amazon, eBay, Sainsbury’s and Argos.
The items were wide-ranging and included educational materials, IT items, art resources, household items and electronic devices.
Mr McPhilemy provided screenshots of receipts from his personal Amazon account to the panel, which were annotated to label them as personal or professional use. But the school said he had never provided them with any Amazon receipts.
Within the transactions some were labelled as ‘mistake purchases’ due to ‘oversight and lack of attention to detail’.
The school credit card was set up via a direct debit – meaning that every month the card was paid off, regardless of whether the school had any receipts. The total spend on the credit card over the period was £56,196.
Just over half of that, £29,317, had supporting credit card statements – but for the remaining £26,879, there was no evidence of the spend and there was ‘no clear audit trail’.
In December 2020 it was found that Mr McPhilemy had been awarded £1,200 for travel expenses after his request for a full annual season ticket had been rejected.
In October 2023 he transferred £4,612 for his personal travel expenditure and £5,257 to the school for personal purchases made on the school’s credit card.
When challenged about receipts Mr McPhilemy said: ‘There was no procedure in place and I accept that there should have been. I agree that there was no system for keeping records.’
When asked about the £1,784 in Oyster Card top-ups and train tickets he said the previous headteacher was given an Addison Lee card and he accepted them in ‘good faith’.
He claimed that every payment on the school credit card was for ‘legitimate school-related purposes’ but accepted that he failed to set up an acceptable accounting system.
He said that the school credit card had been ‘mistakenly’ linked to his Apple Pay account and he had selected the incorrect card when purchasing rail tickets online.
In July 2023 the chair of the governors received a letter from several unnamed members of staff raising concerns about Mr McPhilemy, and he was suspended after an investigation began.
After the police contacted the school, Mr McPhilemy transferred £9,870 to the school to account for payments assigned to him.
He was sacked in November 2023 and the school governors brought the case to the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA).
It was later found that he had also failed to maintain appropriate safeguarding records and documents about staff within the school.
Colleagues described him as ‘exceptionally kind, patient and emotionally present’ and ‘deeply principled and values-led’.
The Teaching Regulations Authority boss, David Oatley, decided that Mr McPhilemy should be banned from teaching indefinitely to ‘maintain public confidence in the profession’.
Our Lady of Victories RC Primary School, which had been rated Good by Ofsted, closed and became an academy in April 2025.
Mr Oatley said: ‘The panel noted that it found proven that Mr McPhilemy, during a period of approaching two years, dishonestly and with a lack of integrity had charged personal expenses to his school credit card and made no attempts to reconcile or reimburse any such payment.
‘The panel noted that although parts of the activities took place outside the classroom teaching environment, the conduct occurred within Mr McPhilemy’s role as headteacher and directly related to his professional responsibilities.
‘The findings of misconduct are serious, and the panel considered the conduct displayed would be likely to have a negative impact on the individual’s status as a teacher.
‘The panel considered that the public would consider public funds being dishonestly misused in the way that it had determined that Mr McPhilemy had done to be wholly unacceptable.
‘The panel considered that public confidence in the profession could be seriously weakened if conduct such as that found against Mr McPhilemy were not treated with the utmost seriousness when regulating the conduct of the profession.’
