Supply teacher acquitted of attacking ‘cheeky’ boy
BENCH SAYS PUPIL’S CLAIMS HE WAS HIT WITH WHITEBOARD PEN WERE ‘VAGUE AND INCONSISTENT’
A SUPPLY teacher was escorted from a school after calling a boy ‘pathetic’ and reducing him to tears, a court heard.
Michael Good appeared at Tameside Magistrates’ Court following the incident, charged with assault.
The school’s deputy headteacher told him to leave the classroom, before he was marched off the premises by another member of staff. Mr Good was accused of assaulting the boy during a lesson – a charge he denied.
The 43-year-old said he identified the complainant – who was sitting on the front row in class – as a potential ‘troublemaker’ and a ‘cheeky chappie.’
The boy first asked Mr Good if he supported Manchester United and, after replying that he did, the pupil said that was ‘sad.’
Mr Good told the court the first half of his lesson went okay until the boy – who cannot be named for legal reasons – began talking to his friend.
He told the court he asked the youngster to ‘face the front’ and ‘stop talking’ on a number of occasions, but he continued. At that point, Mr Good claimed he used a whiteboard pen to tap the boy on the shoulder in an effort to get his attention.
The boy, however, accused Mr Good of striking him on the shoulder. During evidence given to court via video link, he claimed the teacher hit him so hard he could still feel the pain for up to an hour, despite having been wearing a full uniform including blazer at the time.
He told the court he had been speaking to his friend ‘about questions that were set’ for the students to answer and that he saw Mr Good make contact with him from the ‘corner of my eye.’ He added: “It wasn’t like really hard but it was, like, a bit.”
The boy began to say ‘that hurt,’ he told the court, to which Mr Good called him ‘stupid’ and ‘pathetic’ before ‘trying to mock’ him. Asked how it made him feel, the boy said: “Angry, upset.”
Mr Good denied hitting the boy.
The court heard how the youngster had changed his story when telling different people what had happened. The boy had not told the first teacher who saw him following the incident, before telling a second teacher Mr Good had ‘put his hand on my shoulder’ and only later describing it as a hit.
He said: “I think he was trying to wind me up and, unfortunately, he succeeded. I ended up raising my voice, I called him pathetic and then I mimicked him. I regret it – I should not have said that to the child.”
Mr Good, who has no previous convictions, rejected the prosecution’s case of assault and even expressed his shock at how far the case had got in the legal system. The bench acquitted Mr Good, of Midland Close, insisting the evidence from the complainant was ‘vague and inconsistent.’
I think he was trying to wind me up and, unfortunately he succeeded Supply teacher Michael Good