B.C. teacher who did jail time banned for life from teaching

A former B.C. teacher who was jailed for six months for sexually assaulting a six-year-old has been given a lifetime ban on teaching.

In a recently published B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation decision Sept. 27, 2021, a three-member panel ruled Aleksandr Vladimirovich Plehanov should be banned from teaching for life and not 25 years as put forward by the teaching regulator.

"(Plehanov) has lost his job and a serious criminal conviction and sentence, which is still in effect, will have had some effect on him. No doubt he has already suffered some alienation resulting from media coverage. All these consequences are directly the inevitable and natural result of his own behaviour," the panel ruled.

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According to the decision, in 2013 Plehanov sexually assaulted a friend's six-year-old child who he had met through the church.

In April 2014, he was charged with sexual assault and the  Commissioner for Teacher Regulation banned him from teaching for three years.

In 2017, he was sentenced to six months in jail for the sexual assault. He appealed the conviction but lost at the B.C. Court of Appeal in 2019.

The decision says Plehanov was also charged with sexual interference, sexual assault and sexual exploitation in 2010 but was acquitted.

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While Plehanov hasn't taught since he was initially charged in 2014, and isn't allowed to under his probation terms, the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation hadn't until recently finalized Plehanov's file.

While the Commissioner for Teacher Regulation asked for a 25-year ban, meaning that Plehanov would be about 70 years old by the time he could reapply, the panel said that penalty wasn't strict enough.

"To reduce a penalty in these circumstances is like the old story of the man who kills his parents and then asks the court to have mercy on him as he is an orphan. In any event, the penalty we must impose is primarily to protect children, maintain the integrity of the teaching profession the public trust. If indeed they are mitigating factors, which is questionable, they have little to no effect in reducing a penalty for such serious professional misconduct," the panel ruled.

Plehanov was ultimately banned from teaching for life.

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