Teacher questioned over attempted murder of pupil

[Frasersmum123]

This happened near to me

Also clemette I absolutely did not identify these children as "bad kids" who are somehow to be written off - in fact the total opposite. I think this behaviour should be addressed and these children helped in a safe environment (I don't mean locked up, I mean where teachers/kids are protected and safe) with a view to them becoming happier and not disruptive any more.

Hulababy

The teacher had suffered a stroke which was possibly brought on by stress.

To plead diminished responsibiltiy you have to be able to prove that you genuinely had no idea what you were doing.

This would perhaps be possible if he had simply snapped and thrown the weight at the boy. However, this boy has more than one injury and two other children have been injured which means that he will have to convince the jury that he managed to almost kill one child and injure two others whilst having absolutely no idea what he was doing.

Also attempted murder means there was intent to kill. Premeditation is different from intent. Premeditation in the legal sense would mean that the teacher would have had to have been planning the attack for a period of time. This is clearly not the case. However, the prosecution don't need to prove prove premeditation. They need to prove that he intended to kill the boy and as I mentioned in my previous post everyone knows that if you throw a 2kg at someones head you are probably going to kill them.

It is the same as walking up to someone and shooting them. You may not have planned the attack beforehand but you know you are probably going to kill them.

clemette - sadly we shall have to agree to disagree because IME, and as a result on my incident I did look into it a lot aftrwards, I don't think it is as rare as you suggest.

Ad yes, we do not knwo what happened in this incident, but as previosuly said, my comments wre taken in light of the move n the directon of this thread, as is the norm on MN threads.

spokette I am not pretending anything, I actually have a teen, so know the good and the bad.
it is very easy to see them as thugs when you have a small child, but they are still children at 14. if this had been a man in the street, would he have got so much support for bashing a boy senseless?

By spokette on Sat 11-Jul-09 22:42:32
By 2shoes
"I am sickened by the way people insist on defending a grown man attacking a child."

There are 14yo out there who have murdered, raped and stolen. Just because they are a child, does not mean they cannot be held to account for their behaviour.

I personally feel it is high time that children who verbally abuse teachers are dealt with in the same way that children who bully other children are dealt with. I go to work and don't expect to be verbally abused by colleagues. Teachers should not have to put up with verbal assault either.

This in no way trivilises what has happened to the young boy which is totally unacceptable.

Pretending that children who go school are always the innocent party is naive and does a disservice to teachers and the children themselves.

so you have now decided this boy is a thug... where is your proof??

thegirl - Yes, I am aware of the legal side of things. Just int his case, as yet, we dont actually know what happened and why.

it could still be possibly proven that he had no idea what he was doing

• somewhere on this thread I posted 3 of the common sets of after effects - imo any combination of those things could have occurred.

Again speculation - but a possibility.

When would you identify them? Would they go there at age 5, 11, random times? How could it be perceived in any other way than the place where the "bad" kids go? Who would teach there? Would they be able to move back to the "good" school once they had been modified?

I realise you have the best of intentions but it is just not workable.

Poface, as in various other violent crime cases in history, it could be and possibly will be defended by a defence of diminished responsibility. Therefore it is not indefensible. You're simply focusing on the details of the attack and how horrific they are (and yes indeed they are) and demanding that we all be outraged. Well sorry, I can't be outraged when I don't know whether or not this man is suffering from a mental illness for example. It's just a matter of the law that this is not "indefensible" - what you're saying doesn't mean anything.

she hasn't called him a thug - she's talking about 14yr olds in general who are capable of the things she mentions.

I am not demanding you be outraged [although shocked you're not] I am merely pointing out any anecdotal stories about awful children taunting teachers are entirely irrelevant and rather disrespectful to the child who is lying in intensive care.

They would go whenever they were consistently disrupting other people's education. To and fro if necessary.

I think you'll find we have a system in our society that does label people bad and chuck them away - it's called prison, and it doesn't work as is well documented. If students who show signs of this behaviour could be helped properly much earlier, it might keep a lot of them out of prison later on.

I don't think it's going to happen, you know! It's castles in the air. It's just a thought, literally. But I am making the point that a lot of these children are not really being helped much if these situations are just being allowed to carry on, as in the descriptions we have heard from teachers on this thread.

agree with pofaced

So - we all think extreme behaviour in schools needs dealing with more effectively.
There is some disagreement as to how much "backchat/challenging" behaviour teachers should be expected to put up with.
Most people condemn the attack completely given that there is no evidence at all that this child "provoked" his teacher to fracture his skull...

Why should I be outraged when I don't even know if this man is to blame for what he did? As I've said I am sorry for them both. How it is helpful to have your pitchfork out at this point?

I would condemn the attack even if there had been provocation.

I don't think provocation should ever be a defence tbh. I've never understood why it is.

I taught teenagers for several years and have just spent the day with 3 teenage cousins.
I think 2shoes that you may be getting at the fact that people are scared of the unknown and mums of toddlers often don't know teens.People are also influenced by the media of course.
If people have a hard think I'm sure they can't actually believe that the right response to any kind of poor behaviour (even violent) is to assault the child.
I do think the Uk is remiss in the way it criminalises young children who need help not locking up and we compare very poorly to other countries in Europe in this area.
On the other hand it's shocking how many violent assaults are actually found to be carried out by the mentally ill-the system is clearly failing them too -and most of us will suffer from mental illness at some point in our life.
I have also seen the back to work culture in schools - interview with the head if you've been ill twice in the same year ,the pressure teachers put themselves under is extreme too-as do other people in other professions of course.
The only thing I can think of to be thankful for is that this is the top news story precisely because it doesn't happen very often.

Please detail where I have had my pitchfork out?

Oh, I suppose you mean by disagreeing with you...

I have no pitchfork. It is indefensible for anyone to smash someone's head (and especially when that person is paid to be in loco parentis, and does it in front of a group of other children, and injures others etc etc).

What he did is wrong but I won't demonise him, I will just challenge anyone who tries to justify his actions.

btw I haven't said anything about provocation justifying what happened, and that's not why I don't think this indefensible, and it's not why I'm not outraged.

People with schizophrenia now and again commit a murder in the street entirely without provocation - it happened just recently - and yet we all agree they are not to blame; the responsibility lies with the people who are supposed to be looking after them and managing them.

When I was at university one of my lecturers was violently murdered and although the murderer was apprehended, he was of unsound mind and not fit to stand trial.

Again, we don't know what this man's state of mind was though there are strong suggestions that it wasn't good - so I refuse to judge him at this point. It doesn't mean for a second that I'm suggesting that the victim provoked him and/or deserved it.

But who has tried to justify his actions?

Has anyone actually said his actions were justifiable?

Honestly, I don't think anyone (sane) would claim that attacking a child is OK in any circumstances.

By pitchfork I mean being ready to call this man indefensible or be outraged by what he did when you don't know the facts. It's judging before all the facts have come out, and that is wrong.

"It is indefensible for anyone to smash someone's head"

Sorry but in the eyes of the law, this statement is just wrong. There are many solid defences for this and they include diminished responsibility by reason of insanity, and self-defence, for example.

aI havn't got a pitchfork
although I have no sympathy with the teacher, I hope the courts deal with him in the right fasion, so if he is meantally ill he is placed in the right pace(if found guilty).

Although a shocking incident, neither dh or I were shocked. We could picture the scene described all too easily. Have speculated about why the teacher was back in front of classroom after having a stroke due to stress. Imagine it's very uncomfortable being SMT at that school and wondering how good at getting the full-story the various police and LEA investigations will be.

muffle ok it might be the wrong word, but that is just picking at my words.
maybe I should have said there is no excuse for assaulting a 14 yr old child and causing him a serious head injury.....ok