Teacher wins 11-year fight against ‘malicious’ parent

A RETIRED headteacher has won her legal battle against a parent of former pupils after more than 10 years of harassment.

Geraldine McWilliams, 65, took Richard Russell to court amid allegations he had intimidated and scared her since 2006 after she reported concerns about his kids to social work.

The pensioner was headteacher at Saint Monica’s Primary School in Pollok at the time.

An interim interdict was granted in 2006 in a bid to stop him but Russell continued to harass and intimidate her.

She was advised by police not to stay at home after receiving a letter in 2007 from Russell which was believed to be a “viable threat”.

In 2008, Russell was convicted of breach of the peace because of the letter and an incident at the school, and was fined £350.

Yesterday, Sheriff Aisha Anwar delivered her judgment and granted a three-year interdict preventing Russell from approaching or contacting Mrs McWilliams or printing defamatory material about her.

She granted power of arrest if any orders are flouted, as well as a three-year non-harassment order.

She branded Russell’s evidence incredible and said his “ability to distort the truth and to present fact as fiction was both unlimited and shameless”.

Sheriff Anwar said: “Since the submission of the referral form in 2006, Mr Russell has engaged in persistent, sustained, malicious and vengeful course of conduct designed to harass and malign the pursuer, cause her professional embarrassment, fear, alarm and anxiety.”

Speaking outside the sheriff court, Mrs McWilliams thanked the Association of Head Teachers and Deputes in Scotland as well as her family and colleagues for their support. She said: “I pray that this is an end to it, words cannot describe the last 11 years.”

Russell branded it a “whitewash”.