A teacher has been sentenced to three months in prison after pleading guilty to stealing exam papers from a south London school.

Farzana Akbar had been accused of stealing five GCSE maths papers from the Archbishop Lanfranc School in Croydon, where she taught for 13 years.

The 46-year-old appeared at Kingston Crown Court on Friday after previously pleading guilty to stealing Edexcel exam papers and showing them in advance to candidates.

Judge Martin Binning said he had no choice but to impose a custodial sentence as Akbar had undermined the integrity of the exam system.

The examination system runs on an element of trust. It is unfortunate whenever this trust is breached

John Kerr, chief executive of Edexcel

He said her actions had given "deliberate benefit to pupils" under her tuition at tutorial college and a "disadvantage to pupils everywhere else, including the school where you were a trusted teacher".

Judge Binning added: "You undermined that integrity deliberately and dishonestly and you put those pupils in an embarrassing situation because they would have realised as they sat the examination that they had an advantage."

The exam theft was discovered in a police raid on a tutorial college run by Akbar's husband.

The police had received a tip-off from the Edexcel exam board that GCSE pupils at the college were being coached using the real exam papers they were due to sit the next day.

Help pupils

Pupils at the tutorial had not been told they were practising with the real exam paper.

The cheating emerged when a pupil, who found out that she had been shown the exam paper in advance, told another teacher who in turn informed the exam board.

Akbar's solicitor had claimed the theft was out of character and had been a "moment of madness".

He asserted that the theft had not been motivated by financial gain but by a misguided attempt to help pupils in their exams.

'Breach of trust'

Archbishop Lanfranc school said the teacher had responsibility for organising some language exams and had limited access to exam papers kept locked in a secure place.

The school's headteacher David Clark said the theft was a "huge breach of trust" from someone who had been respected by colleagues, pupils and parents.

John Kerr, chief executive of Edexcel, welcomed the courts taking the "matter seriously".

He said: "The examination system runs on an element of trust. It is unfortunate whenever this trust is breached.

"Edexcel welcomes the news that the courts have taken this matter seriously because it is important that the system is seen to be firmly supported by all parties to maintain the integrity of examinations."

Following her arrest, Akbar resigned from the school in June and the tuition college has since closed down.