Teacher's carer 'destroyed'

05 March 2010

A special needs teacher who says her career was destroyed by classroom assaults at the hands of an autistic pupil is battling for massive compensation at the High Court.

The woman, from Romford, was attacked twice by the teenage pupil in 2003, and was to traumatised that she still relives the incidents every night, she told the court this week.

She claims she was left so mentally scarred by the violence - including biting and hitting - that she had to give up her lengthy career and has been unable to work since.

Neither the middle-aged former teacher, nor the pupil, can be identified for legal reasons, but she is now claiming substantial damages from the London Borough of Havering.

Her legal team argue she was not informed the boy suffered from autism, despite the fact senior staff at the school knew about it some three years before the attacks.

Had she known of the boy's particular needs, her barrister, Marcus Grant, said the attacks could have been prevented. She also did not have sufficient training in dealing with autistic children, he told Judge John Leighton-Williams QC.

In the High Court witness box, the woman told the court that her recollection of the attacks is very clear, because she still relives them every night.

The court heard the pupil was obsessed with her and would jump up and down in front of her, repeating her name. He would become upset at disruption to his routine, or would bang and bite his computer if frustrated.

The woman told the court he was the only pupil she had ever taught who masturbated in class, and he also had a tendency to push other children around. She said she thought he suffered from developmental delay.

Describing the first incident, she said: "On that day, he had been very distressed. He was being very noisy, hard to settle and not very co-operative. He didn't want to do anything."

She said he had put his work onto her desk, instead of into his folder, and she told him "No, put it in your folder please."

"I was not being threatening to him, I was not confusing him, he had done it a million times before. I was not being horrible to him, I was not being nasty," she told the judge.

Havering Council - represented by barrister, John Norman - is firmly resisting the woman's claim, saying they are a responsible employer and carried out all the necessary risk assessments and training for teachers.

The hearing continues.