A teacher at a prestigious private school tracked down his colleagues’ addresses, bombarded them with flowers and letters and told them he couldn't stop thinking about them.

Raphael Ruz used a Brighton College database to find out where one colleague lived before sending her flowers and turning up at her house unannounced.

The former teacher and IT director later hounded another colleague, taking photos of her and telling her he "couldn’t get her out of his head".

He was sacked from his job in 2021 but a hearing last year decided not to ban him from teaching. The panel has just published its findings.

Ruz, who worked at Brighton College for over 15 years, looked up two female colleagues' addresses on the school’s database on three occasions between 2017 and 2020.

One of the women, referred to as Colleague A, told a Teaching Regulation Agency hearing that in September 2017, Ruz texted her saying he was driving past her house. She had not given him information about her address.

The same day, Ruz appeared at her house and she said she “did not feel that she was able to question him on this as he was a senior staff member”.


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Later that month, Ruz accessed the database again to send flowers to her address.

In November 2017 Ruz told Colleague A “I can’t get you out of my head”. She had to physically push him out of her office and lock the door.

Ruz also sent Colleague A a photo of her in an email with the caption “nice…” but the hearing said this was "not considered inappropriate or harassing".

Three years later, in October 2020, Ruz once again accessed the database to find the address of another woman, Colleague B, before hand-delivering a letter to her home.

The letter said he wanted to ”get off his chest” that he was “really missing her” and that she “constantly came back to his mind”.

Colleague B said that after the incident she felt increasingly anxious as her home was “her safe space”.

She later contacted Sussex Police and Ruz was arrested but an investigation concluded no further action should be taken.

Ruz was sacked from his job at Brighton College in 2021 but a hearing in December 2023 decided not to ban him from teaching.