Corpun file 7459 at www.corpun.com

Daily Mirror, London, 15 February 1955

As cane was about to fall ...

The schoolboy attacked his headmaster

Instead, the headmaster was punched and kicked by the boy and later screamed at by the boy's mother and pelted with paper by the boy's sister, a court was told yesterday.

The boy was one of 230 pupils at a Derbyshire school, Mr. John Smith, appearing for the headmaster, told Heanor (Derbyshire) magistrates.

He was to have received one stroke of the cane as punishment "for misconduct," said Mr. Smith.

"He struck the headmaster two savage blows in the face and kicked him.

"When the headmaster sat down the boy hit him twice on the head and then ran away."

Before the court were the boy's mother and sister, accused of assaulting the headmaster.

She Burst In

The mother came on the scene shortly after the incident in his study, said the head.

Three days later, said the headmaster, the boy's sister also burst into his study and ignored his request that she should leave.

"Before leaving she scattered books and papers on the floor."

The boy's mother pleaded not guilty. The sister was not in court.

The mother was fined £3 for assault and £4 for behaving in a disorderly manner. The sister was fined £5 for assault and £5 for disorderly behaviour.

Later, the Heanor juvenile court fined the boy £3 for assault.

Corpun file 5580 at www.corpun.com

Daily Sketch, London, 18 February 1955

Miss Jeffs can't use cane

MISS AUDREY JEFFS, 23-year-old schoolteacher who caned 37 of her 38 pupils with a blackboard pointer, is quite happy with her new pupils.

And she said this yesterday of life at her new school:

"I have no difficulty with them, though there may be some naughty children. I have certainly not used the cane again. I am not permitted to cane children until I have been a teacher for three years.

"That will be in July, and then it will be necessary for me to have the permission of the head teacher."

Miss Jeffs had just heard that Northampton education committee had accepted a report from its sub-committee which reprimanded her for breaking punishment regulations and transferred her to another school.

She had already successfully appealed against a £1 fine imposed on her by Northampton magistrates for assaulting one of her nine-year-old pupils.

Said Miss Jeffs: "I think that the sub-committee were very fair. They pointed out to me that I had broken the regulations."

Miss Jeffs, who lives in The Warren, Hardingstone, added that she had received over 200 letters, many of them from parents. About 90 per cent of them approved her action.

Her costs in fighting the court case came to nearly £140. Nearly all of it was met from a fund to which teachers subscribed.