Dorset teacher's guitar skills see him through to next stage of America's Got Talent

A teacher is through to the next stage of America's Got Talent after wowing judges with his guitar skills.

John Wines is usually busy teaching students at Bourne Academy in Bournemouth.

But when a student was nervous ahead of a school performance, the 59-year-old decided to take a chance applying for the show in America.

He's now through to the judges' deliberations phase after performing the Queen anthem We Will Rock You.

After a successful audition video, Mr Wines was flown out to perform for TV personality Simon Cowell, model Heidi Klum, actress Sofia Vergara and comedian Howie Mandel.

The four judges gave Mr Wines a standing ovation for his performance and unanimously voted to send him through to the next phase, where they will be considering which of the acts continue to the live semi-finals.

Mr Wines said: "I've never been through anything so scary at all. Honestly when I finished it was sheer relief that it was over because you don't know what to expect."

He stumbled upon an America's Got Talent application and decided to enter shortly after talking to 16-year-old student Maya.

He explained: "I've never known anyone so nervous about an upcoming concert and I tried to obviously say: 'Look, you'll be OK don't worry, I've seen this face a 1,000 times before'.

"But she said: 'Well it's alright for you sir, you don't get nervous anymore'.

"They say you should always put yourself in the shoes of your students in all fairness, so that's what I did."

Maya added: "I did not realise that he was inspired by me, it makes me literally feel like I can possibly inspire people to just go on stage and just do it."

Mr Wines performed to a packed audience, who all clapped along as he performed the Queen hit.

After his performance, Simon Cowell said to the rest of the judging panel: "I was not expecting that."

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