A teaching assistant who sent nude pictures of himself to the mother of one of the children in his class has been cleared of unprofessional conduct .

The Education Workforce Council’s fitness to practise committee found that although Clive Beattie had been “unwise” in sending the three pictures he had done so privately and was unaware at the time that she was a parent.

The matter came to light when the woman’s husband, identified only as Person B, showed the Facebook photographs to Catherine Patterson – now McNamara – who was head of Ysgol Penmorfa, Prestatyn .

He also claimed that Mr Beattie, who also worked as a children’s entertainer, had told the boy to draw a woman in a wedding dress - said to be his mother – and given him a note saying that Mr Beattie loved her.

The governors of the 450-pupil primary school launched an inquiry and when interviewed Mr Beattie, who had worked at the school since 2010, admitted sending the woman – identified at the remote hearing only as Person A – the pictures of himself in a state of arousal.

But he told investigating officer Bruce Knight that the Facebook conversation had been instigated by the woman, who had sent him a picture of herself in her underwear, stating “It’s your turn”

He said he found her attractive and she texted him: “Oh Clive, Oh Clive, if only...”.

Mrs McNamara told the committee that the teaching assistant would almost certainly have known that she was the mother of a child in his class but he denied knowing the boy. She also had a second child at the school.

The committee was told that Mr Beattie, who did not attend the hearing, would not have known that the woman had “certain vulnerabilities” and had been hospitalised after the investigation was launched.

Panel chairman Peter Owen said the charges relating to the sending of sexually motivated pictures and the alleged note were found not proven and that meant that Mr Beattie was not guilty of having breached professional boundaries or Denbighshire County Council’s social media policies which were aimed at preventing the authority getting into disrepute.

“The committee is not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Mr Beattie was aware of the existence of Person A’s children as pupils at the school at the time of the investigation,” he said.

His conduct, therefore, could not be found to have been “inappropriate”.