in which case the other child would have already complained to the police, and the teachers wouldn't have any need to be collecting statements on behalf of the police. If it is a police matter then the teachers should have nothing to do with it, and the boy should be giving a statement to the police only and in the presence of a solicitor and his parents.

Sounds to me like the teachers are trying to bully the child into changing his statement to suit their own needs in the schools internal disciplinary proceedings.

I was just answering the question that was asked.

If you read my first response I was very much against the teachers bullying the child by lying about police involvement.

If there was a suspicion that it was a deliberate act, then I think the teachers shouldn't have been threatening police involvement, they should have called the police straight in and let them investigate it. There was no reason for the teachers to talk about police involvement if it was an accident. And their invoking the police was bullying and intimidation.

Looks like the teachers may have been conspiring to pervert the course of justice? Jailable offence if so.

If it was an ongoing police case and they did this I'd agree. I don't think it's a police issue though.

I suspect that they are just trying to get the stories straight so that the kid gets his compensation from the insurance company and the teachers don't end up getting fired or severely reprimanded over it.

Or it could be a case of minimising the potential damage to the school.

Whatever it is I think they are doing it in a terrible fashion.

If it becomes a police case (as it may do or at least the teachers are threatening that) could it not be (maybe not, I do not know?). Could there be a question of black-mail or does that only arise where pecuniary gain is involved? A child has been seriously harmed, could that become a police matter or would it be always civil? The teachers / school are in the front line of a claim potentially and seem to have been acting (from what we can gather / infer) in a way that could falsify facts pertinent to that claim. If I were the teachers concerned I would be booking my one way ticket to South America now.

Will only be a police case if the child/ children have been neglected by the school. This will be brushed under the carpet. The only thing schools care about are offsted reports.

Write out a draft letter to the local rag, but show it to the headmaster first. State that if the school imposed discipline, starting with pupils wearing full correct uniform, and the children were supervised at all times, which they should be whilst in school grounds, then terrible accidents like this will not happen.

Worth mentioning the number of stand in teachers that have been brought in this year and the number who have been on long term sick.

Will only be a police case if the child/ children have been neglected by the school. This will be brushed under the carpet. The only thing schools care about are offsted reports.

Write out a draft letter to the local rag, but show it to the headmaster first. State that if the school imposed discipline, starting with pupils wearing full correct uniform, and the children were supervised at all times, which they should be whilst in school grounds, then terrible accidents like this will not happen.

Worth mentioning the number of stand in teachers that have been brought in this year and the number who have been on long term sick.

I've stayed out of this thread as I have insufficient facts to be able to comment but toast has deffo nailed it there.
If only they'd worn uniform, none of this would have happened.

I'm on about the general level of discipline in the school in the first place. A uniform is a statement of discipline and is the first piece of discipline a schoolchild encounters in his schooling years.

Have a look at children coming out of schools and what their uniform looks like. This generally tells you the quality of the school, which is primarily enforced by the headmaster.

IDS has the stats (or beliefs, if pushed) to back up this stupid 5hit.

Then for once, I must be in agreement with a Tory.

On reflection, if the OP's facts are correct then it may (although I am not sure of any ramifications for his son of so doing) be advisable to go to the police and explain exactly what has happened. They can then decide whether or not it is a police matter. If it is, then the teachers could be charged potentially be charged with perverting the course of justice. If not a police matter, so be it. The teachers come what may appear to have been attempting to contaminate evidence whether for a police enquiry or a possible / arguably probable civil action (by the victims parents on his behalf against the school for failure to keep order and protect their child). As a minor the son should not have been isolated but should have had a responsible adult to accompany him in order to ensure that he was not made to do something he did not understand or do something under duress. I think the lad did very well not to sign something he did not agree with. If this is pursued in any fashion I guess the teachers involved will be finished as teachers / headteacher - and rightly so if the OP is a fair summary of the facts. Having said that, the comment someone made about sweeping under the carpet is valid - chances are the police, school and local authority (if an LA school) will wish to do that.

I am NOT a lawyer and so do not take what I say as fact / good advice. It is, however, based on observation of other similar (but distinct) cases I have known of.

Not sure why the parents could be sued when the teachers school are in loco parentis. It's the school / teachers that may (I suspect, will) get sued. If that happens they will realise just how stupid they have been if the OP sums up what happened correctly (which I have little doubt he / she does).

the whole uniform enforcement thing only ever creates tension which leads to the little shiites being even more rebellious, it's complete . Naughty kids are naughty kids and telling them how to dress will just make them not want to comply with uniform rules even more.


On topic, it all smells very dodgy, I'd write to Ofsted, the local rag, and a councillor/MP saying what's happened.

I'll have a word with my mum when I see her, she used to work alongside ofsted to do with child protection sort of things and was very good at ripping teachers a new one when they didn't go by the book, she should know what to do/say.

Okay, so you've written to Ofsted, the local newspaper and your local MP.

But now you've found out that a couple of kids who witnessed the incident have both written statements saying that it was a deliberate act.

How do you feel NOW about sending those letters turning up the heat on the situation?

Or another scenario:

It was an accident, everybody says that. The teachers were just overstepping their mark and getting all the paperwork into place so that the incident was best resolved with minimal damage to every party. The injured child would have been properly compensated, the teachers given a written warning after they admitted being at fault, but otherwise everyone can move on.

But with Ofsted and an MP coming in 2 good teachers have been fired, the insurance company are refusing to honour the claim and it's going to take the court system years to reach a conclusion.

Is that a good thing?

As we don't know what the proposed statement was for, or what was in it, all this speculation is just silly, especially the perverting justice stuff, which is just OTT and not to be taken seriously.

Nobody but a lawyer knows how to make a proper statement anyway, and it would be different depending on the intended use . A school boy's own statement would in general be pretty useless, through no fault of his own. Also, he might have dropped himself in it unnecessarily and naively.

Your motor insurance company forbids you from making a statement after a crash, if you admit liability - even verbally - they may even void your cover. Are they perverting the course of justice?

I have direct experience of a case where the police seriously considered charging a headteacher with the offence for doing exactly this - trying to manipulate statements and even taking them. The was one big difference though was in that case a member of staff was alleged to have struck a boy.

You need to speculate to at least figure out what has been going on.

If you just go to the school they will probably just placate you. You'll go back home and tell your kid that there's nothing to worry about. But next week when the **** hits the fan and all the blame is on your kid and he's getting expelled you've kind of let your kid down.

If the teachers actually were bullying kids to get themselves out of trouble, if they were threatening the "police" on a 13 year old boy to sign something that they knew was a lie solely to protect themselves, then the correct response is to go to the police and let the police deal with it.



Eh????





Read the OP. A 13 year old boy was told to sign a statement without reading it. He was then told to sign a statement of a couple of pages and given 1 minute to do it.



They are making it clear that a driver isn't qualified to pass judgement on an incident that they were involved in. They want the drivers to STFU and let the insurance companies figure out where the blame lies.

They don't want a situation where an 80 year granny is "persuaded" by the 18 year old who has rear-ended her that it was actually her fault all along.

I see your point, but it's not the accident(or whatever you want to call it), it's the funny business with forcing a 13 year old lad into signing an unread and possibly untrue statement. Don't like it one bit.

I doubt if the teachers, as you say, simply overstepped the mark trying to sort things out, would be fired. Severely reprimanded, probably. Fired, unlikely.

Is there anything in this world you don't have direct experience of?

His brain working.

I'm starting to get old and have lived life in the fast lane!

As to education law, Mrs Dally has spent the last 15 years fighting battles on behalf of one of our children, she has also seen paperwork on hundreds of other cases. With due respect to FA, even if he is a solicitor, unless he is one of the handful of experts who operate in the field of education law he will know less than Mrs D (and to a lesser extent me) on the subject. We have a bookcase of law textbooks on the subject! Mrs D goes to regular lectures on the subject.

As has been said, the OP should keep typed notes / minutes of evertyhing - exactly what son said, what was said in the meeting at school on Friday, etc. Ideally, send those minutes to school and ask them to confirm by return that they were OK and that if they do not response within a specified number of days then it will be assumed they are accurate. If something hits the fan quality, contemporaeous records will be important.

I was the first to reply. My first response was that the OP should forget about going to the school and go straight to the police. We're on the same side when it comes to anger about that.



We know that the teachers just overstepped the mark to sort things out. They shouldn't have done it, but it worked out the best for everyone. We're angry at the teachers for their tactics, but accept that their motives are honest.

The problem is that cal train's suggestion was to write to Ofsted, the MP and the newspaper. I don't think they're coming from the "it all worked out fine" angle.

I'd be very reluctant to be the one who involved the police. My initial move would be to attend the school myself and discuss these issues directly.


It's true. Unless you know the rules of evidence, and can apply them to the situation, having regard to the purpose for which the statement will (or even may be) used, then your "layman's" statement will very likely be rubbish, contain stuff it shouldn't, omit stuff it should contain, include hearsay, opinion, etc etc.

Of course, that's not to say that most statements are made by or with the help of lawyers, plainly the vast majority are not, and no doubt they serve various, usually non-legal purposes passably adequately, but doesn't alter the fact that in a legal setting most would not pass muster, and would need to be re-drawn.


All of which is indisputably ridiculous and unacceptable.


Well not exactly, that is one aspect, but the driver may be the world's leading authority on road traffic collisions, and a hundred times better qualified than anyone at the insurance co., that wouldn't make a difference to the requirement. Then again if the other driver wants to claim, then he has to prove liability, and lack of admission makes the case much easier for insurers to defend if they want to. Which is very often. Unless his essential position is ("I deliberately slammed the door shut on his fingers hoping to chop them off" (I presume unlikely) then I'd suggest the boy is at least as unqualified to pass judgement as the car driver.