Teachers' Unions in Conference: Visit led to assault charge

A FEMALE teacher from Norwich who worked in a school for emotionally and behaviourally disturbed teenage boys has had a breakdown after being charged with indecently assaulting a 15-year-old pupil. The incident allegedly took place while she was visiting the boy at the home of a colleague and friend who was fostering him.

'I had congratulated him on his new home, put an arm round his shoulder and pecked him on the cheek. Nothing more than the normal behaviour of an affectionate family friend,' she said.

'I have been fingerprinted, photographed, intimidated in taped police interviews, left in a cell for over an hour . . . and treated like a criminal. My health has suffered . . . I have to take constant medication to control my state of anxiety . . . No one can tell me how the unsubstantiated word of a 15- year-old can so comprehensively ruin my life.'

The evidence against the 32- year-old woman was found to be inadmissible, but she never returned to school.