Two pupils have been suspended after one filmed the other pretending to spank a teacher’s backside during lessons and posted it on the internet.

In the footage, the boy stands behind the female teacher and makes gestures as she leans across a desk helping a classmate.

He then crouches and sticks out his tongue towards her backside before he follows her as she moves towards the back of the class – continuing to pretend to spank her.

The teacher appears oblivious to what is happening behind her back. Throughout the 22 seconds of footage – uploaded to YouTube – the boy’s friend, who filmed the incident on a mobile phone, can be heard laughing.

Brighton Pavilion MP David Lepper condemned the antics of the pupils at Varndean School in Balfour Road, Brighton, yesterday and also criticised YouTube for allowing it to be uploaded.

Mr Lepper said: “These children have been given an almost unlimited audience for showing off this behaviour. People say censoring YouTube would infringe freedoms but what about the freedom of the poor teacher who has had this done to her?”

He called on the school to ban mobile phones from classrooms and said better parenting was needed to stop children behaving as they had.

Mr Lepper said: “I would like to see the strongest possible action taken against those involved.”

Staff at Varndean said they had been unaware of the incident before The Argus contacted them after receiving a complaint yesterday.

They said the incident was being investigated. Within hours the video had been removed from YouTube by its creator. It was uploaded on October 25 labelled “At Varndean School during a French lesson lol” and had been viewed more than 130 times before it was withdrawn. The video had attracted comments from other users.

Varndean acting headteacher Mark Whitby said both pupils had been “internally suspended”, meaning they were isolated from other children. A series of detentions have also been meted out.

Mr Whitby said: “Both children involved in this incident have been spoken to with their parents and both appropriately sanctioned. We also immediately instructed for the video clip to be removed from the website. The school does not tolerate poor behaviour and the misuse of mobile devices.”

He added: “It would also be appropriate to say that this behaviour is uncharacteristic of these boys, that they are nice kids from nice families and they are going to live to regret it. This was silliness which has gone awry.”