I have never wanted to teach in a school. As time has gone by, my decision to avoid them has been shown to be a wise one. Children can be vile little monsters when they want to be. There’s nothing new in that, of course, however, they are now enabled by a system that automatically believes them when they make an allegation. The outcome of this is that lives get destroyed, when a proper examination of the facts at the time could have resolved it and avoided the destruction.
A married teacher cleared of having a sexual relationship and sending explicit texts to a 15-year-old pupil told of her relief today as she vowed to never ‘set foot in a school again’.
Rebecca Whitehurst, 46, says she is ‘picking up the pieces’ of her life after being accused of sending a photograph of her breasts to the boy, meeting him outside school and engaging in sex acts with him in her car.
This is not the first time a teacher has suffered a similar fate as a consequence of a pack of lies. Can we expect prosecution for perjury? I very much doubt it, but without consequences, this behaviour will continue. All that is needed is an allegation. The system then does the rest. Prosecution for perjury is the least this accuser should face. Yet he remains anonymous, while she has been dragged publicly through the courts.
What Mrs Whitehurst can do is take civil legal action against that boy, and his parents, on the basis of his attempt to ruin her professional and personal life and the support of that by the patents (don’t tell me they tried to stop him). There is only the “likelihood” in a civil case, rather than without reasonable doubt. In a criminal case, the Bench has the power to refuse the school’s identity being known. There is no such barrier, unless the law has been changed in a civil case. Hopefully, the biter will be bit.
Newton’s third law springs to mind.
I would like to think so. Unless there are serious, damaging consequences, this behaviour will continue.
Surely, unless the pupil could produce his mobile with the texts and pictures shown to have come from her mobile number the complaint should have been thrown out.
Does the teaching profession not have supportive employers and professional organisations / unions to back them up legally?
You would have thought so. That the jury believed her and not him tends to suggest that he couldn’t produce them for the court, otherwise she’d be bang to rights.
When a serious allegation is made, the teacher is often immediately suspended; Heads (or local authorities) cannot risk leaving an abuser in place to commit further offences, so all pupil contact is stopped until the teacher is proven innocent. Unfortunately, to pupils, parents and the wider community, this looks very much like punishment and inevitably leads people to jump to the conclusion that evidence of misconduct has already been found.
One of the best and most dedicated teachers I know lost his job over a court case despite being found not guilty. After a brief trial, during which no evidence was found against him and several witnesses confirmed that the alleged victim had repeatedly discussed plans to make a false claim, the judge took the unusual step of commending ‘an excellent and exemplary teacher’ and recommending that he return to the classroom as soon as possible. Nevertheless, after receiving a number of letters from parents – ‘no smoke without fire’ – and from an activist organisation threatening a boycott, the Head asked him to resign in the best interests of the school and his union agreed this was the only possible course of action.
Just what I was thinking….without that sort of forensic evidence of his mobile, why did the CPS ever proceed?
Evidence? Who needs evidence?
‘evidence, we ain’t got no evidence’
‘we don’t need no evidence’
‘We don’t have to show you any stinking evidence’
Could be a mantra for any number of groups today….