A London teacher has been granted £850,000 (approx. 1,116,326.25 United States Dollar) in compensation after being hit in the face and kicked during a science lecture by a pupil with a history of aggression against other students and teachers.
The assault was so terrible it left him with serious psychological damage that resulted in his being sectioned twice under the Mental Health Act for his own protection, according to his trade union, the NASUWT.
He has been unable to return to the classroom since and medical specialists think he is unlikely to work as a teacher again, thus the magnitude of the settlement which is regarded to be a record in a case of this nature. The instructor works for an educational network whose insurance would foot the price.
The event occurred in January 2017 when the instructor was attending a science lesson at an undisclosed institution in the city. After a prior incident, the student was punished for three days, and they were told that they would no longer take part the lectures, as mentioned by the teacher in a report of the assault published on the NASUWT blog.
However, when the student returned to school, he showed up for class as scheduled. “When I saw him at the beginning of class, I made the point that he shouldn’t be there and asked him to leave and he walked out and shut the door,” said the teacher, who asked not to be identified.
“I then had my back to the door and hadn’t realised that he’d come back into the room. The rest is a bit of a blur as he attacked me again. The worst thing is that the school knew this pupil was a danger. It wasn’t the first time he had been violent – he had been violent to both other children and teachers.”
Following his career-ending assault, the instructor suffered both physical and mental traumas, including a head injury, tinnitus, hearing loss and bruises. He also suffered from PTSD and severe depression.
An additional £15 million (approx. 19,701,975.00 United States Dollar) was awarded to NASUWT members last year in a variety of instances, including unfair dismissal, discrimination, bullying, trade union disadvantage, and health and safety. The personal injury award was £85,000 (approx. 111,660.68 United States Dollar).
Details of the lawsuit and the settlement made were published on Thursday on the eve of the NASUWT national convention in Birmingham during the Easter weekend.
In a separate instance, a theatre teacher from Wales was awarded around £80,000 (approx. 105,092.40 United States Dollar) after being terminated from her job after having life-threatening asthma following the remodeling of her classroom in 2013. There were a number of difficulties after the remodeling, including mildew on the classroom walls and a break in the floor.
The teacher started to suffer from severe headaches, rhinitis, coughing and wheezing while teaching and ultimately had an asthma attack at school and was brought by ambulance to hospital where she was diagnosed with late-onset asthma, believed to have been induced by her working circumstances. Claims by the NASUWT for unjust dismissal and disability discrimination were successful.
Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT general secretary, said: “While compensation is recognition of the personal and, in some cases, financial loss that members have suffered, it can never make up for the impact which unfair treatment, discrimination and physical injuries have on individuals.
“The money awarded cannot compensate for the emotional, physical and mental distress members have experienced and the fact that, for some, their experiences have left them unable to continue working in teaching.”
This, he added, was only the beginning of a far larger problem. “There is no doubt that many other teachers will have been driven out of the profession without proper redress for poor, discriminatory or unfair treatment because they were too fearful to come forward or believed nothing could be done.”
