Education worker in street brawl
AN EDUCATION support worker was involved in a drunken street brawl over parking spaces which left a man “covered in blood”, a hearing has been told.
Ceri Lewis, a support worker based at Beaufort Hill Primary School in Ebbw Vale, was handed a 12-month community order last year for her involvement in an incident which left a man with lacerations to his hand and fingers after being attacked with a glass at a street party.
An Education Workforce Council (EWC) hearing on Thursday heard police received a call at around 10.28pm on September 18, 2020, from a man saying people had been fighting in the street.
When police attended, one man, referred to as defendant B, said his friend had been assaulted and was “covered in blood.” They then discovered another man, referred to as defendant A, with lacerations to his hand and fingers.
Presenting officer Luke Lambourne told the hearing defendant A had been approached by a man in relation to parking in the street on the night the incident occurred. He said this had turned into a heated argument followed by a physical fight in which a “glass was smashed”.
At Cardiff Crown Court on September 28, 2021, Lewis was convicted of using threatening or abusive words or behaviour with intent to provoke violence. She was later given a 12-month community order at a sentencing hearing on October 19 last year.
It was heard Lewis had not instigated the incident, but intervened after the fight broke out between the defendants and her partner.
Mr Lambourne said it had been a “disgraceful incident in a street where children and families had the potential to be present, even if they weren’t”.
He said Lewis had been called “extremely lucky” to have only been given a community order given the nature of her offence and noted that everyone involved had been “intoxicated”.
He added that police said the incident called into question Lewis’ role in the education sector.
Lewis did not attend the hearing but was represented by her sister Christie Williams, who read a statement on her behalf.
She said there had been “no scientific evidence” that the injuries caused had been as a result of glass and that this had simply been a “magistrate’s opinion”.
She said defendants A and B had come to the social gathering uninvited and that her sister had not instigated the incident but had intervened after the fight broke out between the defendants and her partner.
“She was seeing her spouse being attacked and her intention was to split up that altercation,” Ms Williams said. “It was merely to protect her spouse.”
Regarding the relevance of the conviction to Lewis’ fitness to practise in the education sector, Ms Williams claimed her sister had used the same instincts to split up a fight as she would in the classroom.
Both the allegations that Lewis – whose address was given as Bryn Coch, Beaufort, Ebbw Vale, at the time of her court proceedings – had been convicted of the offence and its relevance to her fitness to practise were found proven by the EWC fitness to practise committee.
Steve Powell, chair of the committee, said Lewis’ actions “appeared to be a oneoff”. The committee therefore decided on a reprimand, meaning Lewis’ ability to practice will not be affected.
The reprimand comes into effect immediately for a period of two years.