To be annoyed with school? Poss trigger warning.

[AntheaBelveden]

DD1 is 16, in her first year of sixth form. One of her A levels is law.

Her law teacher took the class to court today so they could see a case being tried.

The case turned out to be one of child sexual abuse.

DD1 has come home in floods of tears as the evidence they heard was very graphic and included testimony from one of the victims (it's a historical case, so the victims are now adults).

DD got very upset in the court, as did others from their class and asked the teacher if they could leave.

The teacher told them they could leave " if they really had to" but it may affect their marks at the end of the year.

AIBU to think they should have been allowed to leave?

Sorry but what is a trigger warning??

Would the teacher even be aware if someone in that class had sufferes this type of abuse themselves? I am guessing not, therefore I think it was not at all appropriate, especially without a pre warning and an opt out option.

I think the minimum age for the public gallery is 14. That said I think the teacher should have checked with Court staff if advance and found a more appropriate case. Actually hearing evidence is much more harrowing that reading a judgement in a decided case.

No, they would only know if the student had declared it to that teacher personally.

Luck: Of course, and overall I think it was inappropriate. However, there are some areas of the study of Law that are potentially triggering, like Criminal Law, that you wouldn't be able to opt out of altogether. I do think real child abuse cases should be left alone until the students are at least 18 but after that I think you should expect some exposure to the unpalatable when you choose to study Law. You don't get to control what is on the exam.

Sounds awful.

I'd definitely write a very strong email. It was inappropriate and not something I'd expect A level students to have to experience.

There is a magistrates court right next door to the crown court so I really don't understand why they didn't go there instead.

DD knew they were going to court today, but obviously they didn't know what case it would be as details are not published, only names.

Yes I would complain. Especially that it was unsuitable, they were not allowed to leave by the teacher and were told they could lose marks which is codswallop.

Courts are public. So of course they were allowed in. When I was 17 I wanted to be a lawyer and used to go to the courts including a murder trial at the old bailey. Anyone can go.

I'd be pissed off. Its an A-level, not a commitment to studying law full time. Insensitive of the teacher to do this without at least a discussion beforehand, and incredibly insensitive to the victims, who were no doubt extremely anxious about giving evidence. What a fuck up. Complain.

Yanbu they're only 16/17 and may or may not continue with law after A level, and those that do may or may not become involved in this sort of case.

If they had to study such upsetting cases, I would expect it to be covered in class first, with written testimony first, then video (both less distressing than seeing it live). But certainly they should've been able to quietly excuse themselves.

What if one of the students had themselves been a victim of sexual abuse? How would the teacher have dealt with that?

moudly not all courts are public.

FV45 , I know. I was referring to the courts that the ops child visited as people were saying why were they allowed in.

Feel it probably was a bit inappropriate....It's a bit like an A level biology student thinking about studying medicine going to see a post mortem
And if your dd is thinking about Law, many Law Schools actually prefer students who have not done A level law

YANBU.

I'm a bit surprised the teacher didn't just take the kids back to school when they found out what the case was.

Teachers are meant to be sensitive to the needs of their students. That must have been a harrowing experience for your DD, let alone the people giving their evidence in front of a bunch of teenagers, let alone the possibility that some of the students might have been abused themselves... If absolutely nothing else, students should be able to trust their teachers to keep them from harm. It doesn't sound like this particular teacher is definitely doing that.

To tell them that if they left they might get lower marks is awful. And, I suspect, untrue. I doubt there's a part of the exams which asks them to recount what happened in that case.

Double-check with teacher exactly what happened - and then raise hell write a calm, objective, factual, unemotional letter to the Head.

enlist in the armed forces and go off to kill and be killed.

16yos can only join the armed forces with parental consent. They can not go into conflict until they are 18.

YANBU OP. DS1 did AS Law. He wouldn't have stayed in the court, in fact he probably wouldn't have even gone in in the first place.

What if it had been triggering for one of the students?

Totally inappropriate situation.

I'm not a professional lawyer but there are lots of legal careers- conveyancers , copyright law etc that don't involve court room situations like this. I'm surprised that they couldnt witness something a but more mundane like shoplifting. I'm surprised that historic sex abuse case wouldn't involve privacy.

I can't believe some of these responses!!!! I teach social sciences at A level and we've been taking groups of Y12 students to the crown court to watch cases for about 15 years!! It's such a valuable experience for them when studying criminology.

The trials are real, we just go and sit in the public gallery. Anyone of any age can go and sit there at any time - you could just walk in off the street if you wanted to.

I always explain that the cases are real, we have absolutely no control over the content of the case/evidence shown. But they are free to leave the room whenever they want to. We also have a member of staff on the trip available if they need to talk through a case of if they are affected by it. In the court building we also have access to victim support who can talk things through.

And whoever said it's a skive for the teacher.... really??? You think taking a group of 16/17 yr olds on a trip is easy? Wow.

As a teacher and the daughter of a barrister, I think this was badly handled. The teacher may well not have known what the case was - but they should have tried to find out - or, if they did, the students should have been given a pep talk warning them beforehand. If it was a Crown CoUrt there would have been other cases sitting which the young people could have chosen to go to instead.

I've never seen my dad on his feet in court. I suspect he would strongly recommend I stay away from some of his cases if I were ever to go. and I'm a mature woman, not a 16 year old.

everyone studies criminal law, it's part of the curriculum.
Yes, but the curriculum (when I qualified at least) didn't include hearing testimony from child abuse cases (i don't recall hearing testimony from any criminal cases tbh)

I would not be happy about this. I did A level law and went to visit court. Teacher, an ex solicitor, found a suitable case, which tbf was a dull fraud case. She asked around before we went in and said she didn't want us to hear anything traumatic as that wasn't the point of the exercise.

So I would complain as some things in court rooms can be harrowing to hear and I don't think 16 year olds need to be exposed to that.

Also agree with pp that it could have been triggering for a member of the class and he wouldn't have known that.

There was a magistrate court next door. It sounds like that would have been more appropriate.

Having been a juror in a 'sex with a minor' case, I can confirm that cases are only listed by name so they would not have known what they were going into. However, if 'reporting restrictions' was mentioned on the listing it could have been assumed. They could have changed to another case at an interval, but then they would have not known what was happening in the second case and so would have lost out on the procedural element.

There must be people at the Crown Court who are responsible for scheduling the cases, ensuring witnesses are summoned etc - there is a lot of planning and coordination that goes into bringing a case to court.

Why did the teacher not contact the Court and ask for advice on what cases would be most appropriate for a 16-17 year olds visiting the courts, and choose accordingly?

It sounds as if the teacher did no planning or information gathering before this trip - he just picked a day, rocked up with th students, and went into the first courtroom that had a case going on - which would be extremely poor practice on his part.

And if he actively chose this case as the best one for the visit (a very poor decision, in my opinion), he should have ensured that the students were informed in advance, were prepared for what they might hear, and were suitably supported during and after the trip.

I would imagine that cases like this make up a pretty small percentage of cases that come before the Crown Courts, so I doubt that the teacher had no option but to take the students to hear his case. I would be very surprised if there weren't plenty of other more suitable cases he could have picked.

It was a very ill-judged decision, and his handling of the students, when things did go pear-shaped, was pretty heartless.