Daily Mirror, London, 2 February 1956

He caned a boy -- now wins appeal

A TWENTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD woodwork teacher did not use excessive force when caning a twelve-year-old boy, an appeal committee decided yesterday. His appeal against a conviction for assault was allowed with costs.

"He was acting properly and within his authority," Judge H.A. Tucker, chairman of Staffordshire Quarter Sessions Appeal Committee, said of Roy Barber, of Fields-road, Alsager, a teacher at a secondary modern school at Kidsgrove.

Barber was fined £2 with three guineas costs at Burslem in December for assaulting Sydney Houghton after Houghton had cut the bench with a chisel he was using in a woodwork class.

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