A former school sports director banned from teaching after defrauding Richmond Council of £1,208 is still working with schools, it has emerged.

However, bosses at Motive8, where Gary Palmer now works as an education consultant, will be discussing his future at a board meeting on Monday.

Mr Palmer, a former PE teacher, was banned from the profession for two years by the General Teaching Council (GTC) for making false expense claims while working at Whitton School.

An investigation discovered Mr Palmer lodged expense claims to cover £300 for iPods, £472.50 for catering at his 40th birthday party and a £36 bottle of perfume as a gift for his wife between 2007 and 2009.

The former director of PE, and school sport partnership development manager at the school in Percy Road, was suspended in March 2009, pending an internal investigation.

He resigned in June that year, before an internal disciplinary hearing could be heard.

Mr Palmer now works as an education consultant for Motive8, which provides curricular and extra-curricular sports programmes to schools in the borough.

Motive8 director Nick Sadler said the company was “considering its options”.

As school sports partnership development manager, Mr Palmer worked for Richmond Council, co-ordinating activities and events for Richmond School Sports Partnership, which aims to increase participation levels and raise standards in PE and school sport for young people in the borough.

Further investigations into his claims during the two-year period revealed the former Whitton School pupil had made 43 duplicate travel claims totalling £523 between February 2007 and October 2008, and had claimed twice for a £20.79 leaving gift for a former headteacher.

He was given a two-year teaching ban by the GTC on July 16, after being found guilty of “unacceptable professional conduct”.

One reader, posting under the name Teacher1 on the Richmond and Twickenham Times website, wrote: “He has taken money away from those who it should be going to – the schools, the future athletes, the events.

“How he can be doing this and then still be working with schools in the borough like nothing has happened is a worry.”