Mr Bolton was sacked in December 2002

Andrew Bolton, 35, from South Gosforth, claimed he was unfairly dismissed from Church High School, in Newcastle.

He said his relationship with former pupil Shona Upton only started after she had left the school.

An employment tribunal in Newcastle ruled he was unfairly dismissed from his job. It dismissed claims for sexual discrimination and victimisation.

The tribunal heard the former head of maths was sacked when rumours circulated among the school's pupils that he was having a relationship with Miss Upton.

'Unsatisfactory investigation'

Miss Upton, now 19, told the tribunal she moved in with Mr Bolton shortly after starting at university in September 2002.

Mr Bolton was sacked in December 2002.

The school's headteacher Lesley Smith told the tribunal she believed an affair had been developing since October 2001.

In its judgement, the tribunal panel said: "The investigation appears to have unearthed unreliable rumour from whatever unknown source and preferred it to what must have been the perception of the management of the school at the time and the very much more reliable evidence of the principals involved.

"The procedure followed, relying as it did upon the heavy involvement of Mrs Smith and her deputy at all stages, the refusal to take proper account of hard evidence, the oppressive nature of the disciplinary hearing and the refusal to allow the applicant his chosen representative or to bring forward a witness who might have prevented all this from proceeding at all is most unsatisfactory.

"The respondent may have had a genuine belief in the applicant's guilt, but this was an unfounded belief which no reasonable employer could have held based on an unsafe and unsatisfactory investigation and disciplinary process."