An award-winning former Southend headteacher has been fined for sending a fraudulent letter to get a job at a school.

Dr Tawanda Madhlangobe, 47, who was head teacher at Seabrook College on Burr Hill Chase in 2013, was ordered to pay £910 at Colchester Magistrates’ Court on February 14, after admitting committing fraud in Brentwood on September 28, 2015.

When Madhlangobe, who lives in Norfolk, applied to be headteacher at Horton Education and Care school in Hull in 2015, he was asked why he had recently failed to get a job at the nearby Bridlington School.

He had been rejected because of a caution for common assault on his wife in 2009, but he asked Sarah Pashley, who had interviewed him for the Bridlington post, to tell Horton that it was due to personal reasons.

She refused, but while in Brentwood he sent a letter to Horton, which purported to be from her.

Prosecutor Stephen Sparks said: “He used the first school’s letterhead and paper. He was shortlisted and interviewed at the second school.

“After the interview there were concerns, and they wanted to test the letter’s legitimacy.

“When they contacted the first school, it transpired that the letter was fraudulent.”

Madhlangobe, who is unemployed and living on an overdraft, was arrested by police while on a plane that had just landed at Heathrow Airport from his home country Zimbabwe.

The separated father of two, who has a doctorate in education from the University of Hertfordshire, won secondary school teacher of the year at the 2008 London Teaching Awards for work at Pavilion Study Centre in Barnet.

Mitigating, Jemima Ivens said: “The caution in 2009 was for a row with his wife. He kicked an ironing board, but there was no laying of hands. – EssexLive