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A teacher from Staffordshire who suffered such a serious back injury in an assault at a secure unit that she could not work again has been awarded £402,000 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority which is thought to be the biggest in the union's history.
Graham Clayton, the NUT's chief legal officer, told the Times Educational Supplement that the amount was "entirely justified" by the career-ending injury the teacher suffered.
Another teacher, a member of the NASUWT, received £165,000 from Leeds City Council after being injured repeatedly while trying to break up fights at a rough city school. She said she felt she had to intervene in a fight in which a group of white boys trapped one Pakistani 13-year-old and started punching him in the face. While asking to remain anonymous, she told the TES: "It's hard when you've had the confidence knocked out of you mentally and physically."
Recent figures from the unions show teachers won an estimated £20m in compensation for accidents and injuries last year.
In another case a teacher won £330,000 after quitting her job at a Birmingham special school after being threatened by a thug. The massive sum handed to Anna Mongey in an out-of-court settlement is believed to be the largest paid by the authority to an employee in recent years.
She sued the council after the intruder, understood to have been freed a short time earlier from a jail sentence, confronted her at Lindsworth Special School in Monyhull Hall Road, Kings Norton.
Ms Mongey ordered him out of her class but he threatened to return for her. She was not hurt but never returned to her job and launched legal action believed to relate to risk assessment procedures.
The intruder, believed to have been earlier freed from a sentence imposed for inflicting grievous bodily harm, claimed he wanted to speak to a relative in Ms Mongey's class when he confronted her in May 2001.
Ms Mongey did not want to comment on the settlement, but sources close to Lindsworth Special School told how she had been traumatized by the incident. "She was threatened and he was very close to her," said one source, who would not be named. "She had never seen him before and he was a complete stranger. But she never came back to the school." "There was not enough risk assessment." A second source claimed he had told school officials about the intruder's background. "She wasn't injured, but was absolutely shocked by what happened," she said. "He said he was going to come back for Anna. I told other members of staff about this man's background, but they told me to keep it to myself."
The National Union of Teachers today hailed the settlement and called on Head Teachers to protect their staff. |
