Meanwhile, the Teachers’ Council of Thailand (TCT) yesterday said it would file for suspension of the accused teacher’s licence this week.

Sarot Meepai, 33, was arrested on Friday evening at Secondary Educational Service Area Office 1 in Bangkok, where he was transferred pending a fact-finding disciplinary probe, Central Investigation Bureau chief Police Maj-General Thitirat Nongharnphithak said.

The teacher’s three cellphones were also confiscated for investigation.

The arrest warrant was issued for Sarot for alleged violation of the Computer Crime Act’s Article 14 (4) – uploading pornographic information to a computer system; and Article 14 (5) – publishing pornographic information.

Pol Maj-General Supaset Chokchai, chief of the Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD), said police would take time to check the contents of his phones. He said police would take Sarot to the Ratchadaphisek Criminal Court to seek a detention order and would object to his release on bail, to prevent him from tampering with evidence, as police still had to determine if people in the pornographic images and clips were actually minors.

Sarot told the press some information on Thai social media about his case was not true. He said he had never molested his students from Suankularb and that there was no indication in the images that the people he had sex with were minors.

The teacher said he had sex with people who shared the same desire and were all over 20 years old. He urged the public not to use his case to tarnish the school’s reputation, as this was a personal matter.

He claimed information was uploaded to Twitter because he let people use his phone and exchange his Twitter username and passwords. He said students and school sport uniforms were merely used to attract ‘likes’. He said he had done this for nearly a year and apologised for any inappropriate behaviour.

An informed source alleged that Sarot’s cellphones were found to contain some sexual images and video clips and the TCSD was checking for links to crimes, as of press time late yesterday.

Education Ministry deputy permanent secretary Chaiyos Imsuwan, in his capacity as TCT acting secretary-general, said he would propose to the Professional Standards Committee to suspend Sarot’s teaching licence and to set up a fact-finding committee to look into the case. If Sarot were found guilty, Chaiyos said he would propose to the committee to revoke his licence.

The TCT had recently passed a new regulation on teacher ethics violations, which authorised the head of the TCT to set up a committee to prove a breach of discipline immediately and to suspend the accused person’s licence without waiting for the probe result. Chaiyos said the new regulation could be used for the first time in the Sarot case. He said the school and the Office of Basic Education Commission would be informed of the licence suspension order.