A deputy head teacher who was falsely accused of rape claims the prospect of similar allegations has made the profession 'like buying a lottery ticket' for men.

In December 2014, having worked his way up to the deputy role at the prestigious St George's School in Ascot, aged just 35, Kato Harris was accused by a 14-year-old at his previous school of raping and sodomising her in his geography classroom.

According to one of her teachers, the girl was competing with a friend 'as to who could have the biggest story'.

He endured a 17-month ordeal during which he was publicly named, humiliated and dragged through the courts, an experience, he says, that left him suicidal.

Kato Harris was accused by a 14-year-old at his previous school of raping and sodomising her in his geography classroom

And, with one in five teachers being wrongly accused of misconduct during their career, he cannot understand why any man would get into teaching.

He told TalkRadio: 'If you become a male teacher, you are buying a lottery ticket. You might win a £10 prize and have a false allegation made that you called a child a rude name, or swore at a child.

'You might win the £1,000 prize and have a pupil suggest you inappropriately touched them while passing in corridor,' he said.

Mr Harris endured a 17-month ordeal during which he was publicly named, humiliated and dragged through the courts, an experience, he says, that left him suicidal

'Or you might win the jackpot and be accused of, on three separate occasions and in full view of the school, raping a pupil. Whatever the prize, who would want that ticket?'

His ordeal finally ended when a jury cleared him after just 25 minutes' deliberation, but the damage could not be undone.

The girl's false claims have destroyed his career – and extinguished his passion for teaching.

The Crown Prosecution Service charged him without the evidence to do so, his school failed him when he was cleared and his local Anglican church turned him away simply because he was awaiting trial.

Yet after his acquittal, he received thousands of messages of support from pupils past and present, colleagues and parents.

From the outset, detectives doubted the girl's 'poor and heavily prompted' account of being raped on three separate occasions in a classroom at lunchtime.

Mr Harris is convinced the case would have been dropped but for the deep pockets of the girl's parents, who hired the services of both Alison Levitt, the former principal legal adviser to the head of the CPS, and Sue Akers, an ex-Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner.

In an interview with the Mail on Sunday last month, he revealed his ordeal finally ended when a jury cleared him after just 25 minutes' deliberation, but the damage could not be undone

Mr Harris is convinced the case would have been dropped but for the deep pockets of the girl’s parents, who hired the services of both Alison Levitt, the former principal legal adviser to the head of the CPS, and Sue Akers (pictured), an ex-Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner

In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, last month, Mr Harris added: ‘I had to give up my dream because of a crime I didn’t commit.

‘I am unemployed, living in a bedsit and will soon be on housing benefit. I am toxic.

‘I genuinely believe she picked me because she had to pick someone. One of the biggest challenges I face in the future is learning to forgive her. I will do, just not now.'