A teacher has pleaded guilty to stealing exam papers from a school in south London.

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

Mrs Akbar, 46, from New Malden in Surrey, pleaded guilty at Wimbledon magistrates on Friday.

Her sentence will be decided at a later date by a crown court, where a higher penalty can be applied.

'Moment of madness'

Mrs Akbar was arrested after the police raided the Headstart tutorial college in south west London.

The police had responded to 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.

The pupils at the tutorial college were not told that they were practising with the real exam paper.

And the cheating emerged when a pupil, discovering that she had been shown the exam paper in advance, told a teacher, who in turn informed the exam board.

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

The solicitor read out a number of letters from former colleagues testifying to her good character.

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

Mrs Akbar did not say anything to the court, except to enter her guilty plea.

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

Mrs Akbar had resigned from the school in June, following her arrest.

The school's head teacher, David Clark, at the time of the arrest, had said that he was "devastated".

"She has been someone who has been respected by the kids, the parents and teachers, " he said.