Head wants pupils expelled for false abuse allegations
Saturday, 5 May 2007
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A headteacher honoured for her services to education has launched a campaign to punish parents and pupils who make malicious allegations, after being falsely accused herself of assaulting a three-year-old.
Dame Mary MacDonald, head of Riverside Community School in North Shields, near Newcastle, faced the allegation just months after she was recognised in the New Year Honours List for turning her school's performance around.
Figures show that around 6,000 teachers have been accused of abusing children in the past 15 years. One union, the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said of the 2,210 allegations it had investigated only 88 had resulted in a conviction.
In one authority, 50 teachers have been suspended on abuse allegations in the past five years.
Leaders of the National Association of Head Teachers at their annual conference in Bournemouth demanded yesterday that heads and teachers should have the right to remain anonymous until allegations were proven against them. In addition, the school's name should remain secret.
They are also investigating ways of punishing parents and pupils who make malicious allegations. In the pupil's case, they argued, the youngster should be expelled. Parents should be brought to court on a new charge of making a malicious allegation.
Dame Mary said yesterday that her ordeal had started when two mothers stormed into a school assembly and accused her of hitting the child of one of them. They refused to leave until the police were called. She gathered witness statements from other staff and was cleared by both police and her local authority.
However, two days later, the case was reopened after a council official heard gossip on a council estate that she had kicked the three-year-old "like a football". Eventually, she was cleared for a second time.
"When I heard the allegation, I was beginning to think 'what if the Queen hears about this?'," she said. "This is a very serious time for heads and for teachers in schools. I was accused by a parent who was fired up by another mother who had been an aggressive parent in my school for many years."
She added: "I have seen the allegations destroy excellent colleagues' reputations. The headteacher is the big catch in the school. Teachers can be protected to some extent by strong headteachers but a head has no one to turn to."
