Photo: heritagewoodshomes.com A teacher at Eagle Mountain Middle School was suspended for hitting a 12-year-old boy.

A Port Moody middle school teacher will serve a 10-day suspension after the school board learned he had been arrested for punching a 12-year-old boy who may have been throwing french fries at his car.

On June 1, 2008, Gentle St. Prix, a learning services teacher at Eagle Mountain Middle School, was driving with his son and a family friend, when someone in the car beside him began throwing french fries at them while stopped at a red light.

St. Prix got out of his car and confronted the people in the car beside him. The 12-year-old boy in the front seat said the person in the back seat threw the deep-fried potatoes, but the back-seat occupant blamed the 12-year-old.

“St. Prix got angry and frustrated and punched the person in the front seat. The person in the front seat was a 12-year-old boy,” reads the recently-published British Columbia Commissioner for Teacher Regulation consent resolution agreement.

The boy was left with “minor bruising” on his head.

St. Prix got back in his car and drove off, and the boy's mother called police. St. Prix was later arrested for assault, and admitted to police that he punched the boy.

He was eventually given 10 hours of community service in exchange for having the charge stayed.

In September 2012, a criminal record check found the arrest on St. Prix's record, and the Criminal Records Review Program informed the Teacher Regulation Branch. An investigation into St. Prix by the commissioner for Teacher Regulation didn't begin until February 2015.

The Criminal Records Review Program decided St. Prix did not pose a risk to children as the charge was “dated, singular and there was no pattern of behaviour.”

Almost two years after the investigation began, in December 2016, the commissioner decided to impose the 10-day suspension on St. Prix, which will be served in December 2017.

During the investigation period, St. Prix denied he was arrested, but he has since admitted to hitting the child and the subsequent arrest.