Teacher arrested for attempted murder

[Bottomofthebarrel]

This week a teacher at my DD’s secondary school was arrested for attempted murder. He stabbed a woman in the head and neck in broad daylight, and I believe he was only unsuccessful in killing her because other people intervened. She is in a critical condition in hospital, so he could be looking at a murder charge. This has all been in the news, including the BBC.

This man was teaching my own child until very recently. She was given an after school detention by him for being very slightly late to his lesson, and the detention was just him and her sat in a room. That sends shivers down my spine now. I can’t get the whole thing out of my head.

This must be so disturbing for all the kids at the school. I feel that the school are potentially going to struggle more with behaviour control from now on - this man was employed as one of their role models so I can’t help but feel they’ve lost the moral high ground. Not to mention the effect on those who are in their exam years and are now minus a subject teacher.

How the fuck does someone like that become a teacher? I must say in the last 9 years since my DC started secondary, I’ve come across a few - all of them male - teachers who have got my back up and seem to be definite ‘power tripping know it all’ types, and not particularly bright to boot. There’s another male teacher in another local school who was in the news, having to pay £200,000 damages to his neighbour after a childish bullying campaign which went on for years.

Is this the best we can do? I get teaching isn’t the most attractive profession, but it actually terrifies me that these people are supposed to be guiding and leading our children, sometimes on a one to one basis. My worry is that with the current shortage of teachers, and desperation to fill vacancies, the standards are going to sink even lower.

This isn’t a general teacher bashing thread, there are many truly wonderful ones out there, and I know it’s an incredibly difficult job. Just feeling very shaken by what has happened this week. My DD really didn’t like this man and I assumed it was her being a stroppy teen, now I feel awful for not taking her seriously.

Why is the trust and safety in the school, gone?

Wild the number of people who are so desperate to take an opposite opinion on here that they are immediately dismissing the attempted murder of a woman in broad daylight by a man who has just clocked off from his teaching job as mental health issues 🙃

I know someone who worked at the school where a pupil stabbed and killed a well loved teacher (very famous case).
it didn’t start a spate of copycat crimes, cause people to use it as an excuse or affect the schools behaviour policies, or anything like that.
they were all really sad and traumatised but pulled together as a community to get through it.
i think you are being a bit inwards looking about this op. There are people capable of committing violent crimes from all walks of life, and for many different reasons.

It's the fact that culture has supported them. That groups of police officers are acting in disgusting ways and not even hiding it. The covering up accusations of serious crimes. Its the culture of the Police.

The NHS had quite the culture of covering up but I wouldn’t say Lucy Letby was the norm or representative of nurses either.

Wild the number of people who are so desperate to take an opposite opinion on here that they are immediately dismissing the attempted murder of a woman in broad daylight by a man who has just clocked off from his teaching job as mental health issues

It’s a big disturbing!

bit

To add context to the other side of this. Last year a Yr 11 boy threatened to stab me, was known to carry a knife and take drugs. Nothing was done because he was considered vulnerable. So I had to continue to teach him for another six months, constantly having nightmares about him doing to me what that boy did to his poor French teacher a few years ago.

Male violence and entitlement is the problem. Not teachers. This year I have been sworn at, had sexually intimidating jokes made about me, had a male student track me down to my house and been threatened with stabbing (different kid this time). But it is okay because they are just kids RIGHT!

So don’t worry. Teacher’s authority is already in the bin.

But, as far as public perception goes, that was an issue with one particular set of people in one trust.

The police issue, is in all forces and on TV. Is that culture goes right through the NHS that should be highlighted.

If people outside the NHS dont know about it, their perception would be different.

The culture of the police has been like that for a long time and it's being highlighted. Its not the odd police officer co.mitinf a crime. Which again, is why you can't compare the 2.

Public perception and public knowledge of the police, NHS and teachers are all different.

Report states he is not considered a threat to the community at large - it doesn’t say much, but I am inferring this was a domestic.

Shocking though it is, it implies nothing about anyone who was in detention with him nor his fellow staff/school culture.

You need to calm down and reassure your child rather than feed her the narrative that she is lucky not to have been harmed. That will put the fear of god into her, when it is a parent’s job to reassure and help children understand the world. MH crises and domestic violence happens in all walks of life - and that is the conversation you should be (calmly, rationally) having with her and your fellow parents.

Bullying of teachers by SLT is normal. Bullying of teachers by parents and children is accepted. A culture which disrespects teachers destroys good behaviour and encourages bad. So it goes.

What does the above have to do with the OP? The man was a victim?

OP. It’s easy when something happens around us for it to feel like it happened to us, that it’s our tragedy. But it isn’t. This man did nothing to your DD and it’s unlikely she was at any risk. This tragedy belongs to the poor woman who has been attacked. Sadly, it doesn’t show teachers are violent but that yet again, men are.

So because of this your teen will follow his example and stab someone. Okaaaay...

But, as far as public perception goes, that was an issue with one particular set of people in one trust.

I disagree with that, look at the maternity scandals etc but either way it’s going off a tangent. My point was the weird dismissing of the OP.

Quote them. Because I’ve seen about 3 post that mention mental health may have played a part and not one of those posts used it as a defence for his actions. I’ve seen more posts making sarcastic comments about the number of people using mental health as a defence than I have seen actually using mental health as a defence.

*Violent people. It’s not just men, let’s not forget Lucy Letby and the like!

Well said.
Sensationalising a dreadful attack like this is unnecessary. You should be reassessing your daughter and putting the situation into context.
If you’re that concerned that the school is going to morph into some sort of mob rule situation then you’d better educate her yourself at home.

It's clearly not acceptable which the children will deduce if they hadn't already from the fact he's been arrested and will serve a lengthy prison sentence.....

This - 100%

I'm a nurse in a high security prison - we have hundreds of murderers , rapists , paedophiles , terrorists

They come from all walks of life and are exactly the same as any person you meet out in the community - pleasant , polite , charming , funny , helpful, respectful

There are a small number of course who put the hairs on the back of my neck at full attention and some dead behind the eyes but it's a huge eye opener how " normal " any murderer can be

This is no reflection on the school at all so your fears are unfounded

The responses on here are so different from Couzens, Letby, etc.

as for the post about having this removed as it may impact the trial, look through all the other threads of similar cases. Just because he’s a teacher doesn’t mean people should be silenced.

I think what OP is saying, is that the school were using this particular teacher as a role model, how to behave etc... and then he goes and stabs someone. Not sending out a great message to the students!

In reference to the other points made about the standard of teaching slipping, actually the bar has been raised since 20 odd years ago. Teachers must have a degree at 2:1 or above, they must pass skills tests, the training year/years in school is watched and monitored very closely. Strict guidelines about conduct and social media usage etc. advanced DBS checks. I'm not sure what else can be done? 🤷🏻‍♀️

And my point is that you are comparing completely different things. They aren't the same for many different reasons. Including public perception.

You're mixing different things up here in my opinion.

It's understandable that you, your child, and this man's colleagues and pupils at the school might find this unsettling. Whilst logically this incident doesn't mean that he was likely to murder someone at work, it's unsettling to realise someone that you know and have liked or respected does something awful. It also highlights what many people, especially women, say about violent men being in all walks of life, which is probably a harsh realisation for the students.

It's unreasonable to think that the actions of a violent man give badly behaved or gobby students a free pass to argue with staff. This awful case has nothing to do with whether students follow school rules or not.

This.

It's an horrendous thing to happen - but there is no way any sort of screening or psychological assessment of any type could have made any difference.

We will never know if any of his pupils were at risk, but it seems unlikely- there is a very strong implication that the woman he stabbed was in, or had been in, a relationship with him, but I can absolutely understand that you feel chilled at the though of you, or anyone else's vulnerable child, being alone with him.

I think your reaction is a bit OTT. As others have said, teachers are just like any other people and some of them commit crimes. While this is awful I am assuming the woman was his partner/girlfriend and it is extremely unlikely that he was a threat to any student. It's also unlikely that any student is going to start stabbing people because he did.

Remembering back to my own school days we would have been agog at such exciting (!!!) news and it would have entertained us for days - such is the nature of school kids. I'm sure none of us would have been unduly upset by it.

Again, those trials have been and gone. More evidence is in the public domain.

I am sure if it comes our that loads of teachers, knew and laughed about how vile he was, or had complained to the LA repeatedly about his behaviour and raised issues and suspicions (like the the lethby case), the thread would be different.

But at the moment no one has any idea about wethwr the school kne whe was such a person, or turned a blind eye etc. At the moment its going to be assumed the school did the checks they needed to and had no reason to think he was a danger to the child in the school.

It was really obvious Couzens was a danger to women. Lethbys behaviour was a concern to colleagues and their concerns were ignored. If it comes out the same happened here, I would better money the tone of the thread would change.