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Messages - selkie

151
Main / Men 'worried to take up teaching'
Apr 21, 2006, 11:01 PM
http://tinyurl.com/eeqby

Fewer men in Northern Ireland are going into the teaching profession because they are worried they will be labelled as paedophiles, a union has said.

The Ulster Teachers Union has called on Education Minister Angela Smith to take steps to address the problem.

It said one college had reported that just over 10% of its students taking primary teaching courses were male.

The issue is being discussed at the union's annual conference, which began in Newcastle on Friday.

Audrey Stewart, president of the UTU, speculated on a number of factors which may be putting men off the profession.

"In the necessary climate of child protection do they see themselves at risk of being accused of being paedophiles and open to litigation?" she asked.

"Do they view teaching as a nurturing role, more applicable to women?"

She said men may feel the pay is not high enough or that they are likely to face hassle "from parents who know their rights, but not their responsibilities".


'Male role models'


Tom Moore, the only male teacher in Edenderry Primary in Banbridge, County Down, said many people viewed teaching children "as women's work".

He said it was a pity more men were not joining the teaching profession.

"You cannot give jobs to teachers in schools just because they are men - the best person should get the job," he said.

"But it would be nice to have a few more male role models in schools.

"I like a variety within teaching and I think they (female teachers) would like it as well - but if the people are not there then there is nothing much you can do about it."

152
Main / Teacher cleared of raping pupil
Apr 21, 2006, 10:30 PM
http://tinyurl.com/jy59x
Teacher who died in jail is cleared of raping pupil
By Tony Halpin, Education Editor


A MUSIC teacher who died while serving an eight-year jail sentence for raping a pupil has been cleared posthumously by the Court of Appeal.

Darryl Gee was convicted in 2001 on the word of his accuser about incidents that she claimed happened more than a decade earlier, when the woman was 11.

Mr Gee, who always protested his innocence, died aged 55 in his cell in Armley prison, Leeds, from an undiagnosed blood cancer a month after his second appeal was turned down in 2002. He had served 18 months.

His mother, Molly, 88, waged a five-year battle to clear his name, which ended with the decision of the Court of Appeal in London to quash the conviction. Lady Justice Smith said that expert psychiatrists had concluded that the alleged victim's claims were unreliable and had become "more florid" since the trial.

A schools union said that the case underlined how vulnerable teachers were to malicious allegations from pupils that could wreck their lives. The Government issued guidance last year designed to speed up investigations by police and local authorities into allegations of abuse.

Mrs Gee told The Times yesterday that her son was physically disabled and would not have been capable of committing the alleged acts. Mr Gee, from Huddersfield, was born with spinal deformities that made it difficult for him to balance and to co-ordinate his hands.

"The whole thing has been utterly farcical and tragic. My son could not climb the stairs without holding on to the bannister. He certainly could not have raped anybody," she said.

"[He] was always quite convinced he would be cleared. He would tell me that it would all work out. But he died just after the second appeal was lost. His faith in the system had been totally betrayed."

Mrs Gee said that her husband Kenneth sank into depression and died seven months later, shortly after the couple's diamond wedding anniversary.

Their son, in 20 years as a supply teacher, gave music lessons to hundreds of children without any complaints until he was accused by the woman in 1999 of rape and indecent assault at a Huddersfield school a decade earlier.

The woman made similar allegations against another man, John Hudson, who was jailed for 12 years at Leeds Crown in 2000. Mr Hudson's conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal last year after a psychiatric expert concluded that his accuser's recollection of abuses was "implausible".

A jury convicted Mr Gee by a majority verdict of rape and indecent assault in January 2001. Mr Gee and Mr Hudson shared a prison cell for a time.

"It all boiled down to one girl's word against [my son's] and the jury believed her," Mrs Gee said.

The Court of Appeal awarded Mrs Gee more than £62,000 in costs at the hearing last month. The appeal was heard after the Criminal Cases Review Commission asked a psychiatrist to report on Mr Gee's accuser. The study cast doubt on the mental state of the woman, now 26. The judge said that she had made no mention of being abused by Mr Gee in recent statements.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said: "This is an extreme and tragic illustration of the consequences of malicious allegations and underlines the need for these new procedures."
153
Main / Lenience for baby-killer
Apr 14, 2006, 07:11 PM
http://www.winnipegsun.com/News/Columnists/Brodbeck_Tom/2006/04/13/1532438.html
Lenience for baby-killer
 
Apparently killing a newborn baby by suffocating it with a plastic bag and dropping it in a dumpster is not that serious a crime anymore.

At least according to Justice Deborah McCawley, who last month handed an 18-month conditional sentence -- no jail time -- to a 27-year-old mother who suffocated her own baby.

For that, McCawley is the winner of the latest Eight-Ball Award, handed out in this column to highlight some of the worst perversions of justice in our legal system.

McCawley said she saw no need to send Selena Odette Stevenson to jail, even though the woman knowingly killed her own baby.

Putting her behind bars would only harm the woman's chances at rehabilitation, the judge said.

"All seem to agree incarceration would serve no purpose at all ... I share that view," said McCawley.

No purpose at all? How about the long-standing sentencing principles of general deterrence and denunciation?

How about the Criminal Code's requirement that sentences be proportionate to the seriousness of the crime? Did McCawley rip those pages out of her copy of the Criminal Code?

It seems that more and more, judges are ignoring those principles.

The focus for many judges when sentencing these days is almost entirely on rehabilitation and re-integration of the offender. Those are noble objectives.

But they shouldn't be pursued at the expense of the more important sentencing principles of deterrence and denunciation.

I don't know if judges realize what they're doing when they hand out these light sentences for serious, violent crimes.

But the message McCawley has just sent to the public is killing your own newborn is not a serious crime. What she's saying is you won't face serious consequences if you commit such a heinous offence. Instead, you can expect little more than a slap on the wrist.

That's a pretty dangerous message to send. And it's not without its own consequences.

The argument that there's no point sending someone to jail because it will harm their chances at rehabilitation could be used in almost any criminal case.

You can always argue that by sending someone to jail you're going to make their life worse off because they won't get the programming they need, or whatever.

So why send anybody to jail at all?

We put people behind bars for serious crimes like killing your newborn because we have to draw a line in the sand somewhere and say "we won't tolerate this."

We have to denounce the crime and send a message to society that these crimes will be dealt with harshly. If we don't do that, we lose order. It's really that simple.

That's not to say in the wake of McCawley's ruling women are going to run around and start suffocating their babies. But the more you pull back that line in the sand, the more people know what they can get away with. Justice McCawley has just drawn a new line in the sand.

She doesn't understand, or doesn't believe in, the sentencing principles of deterrence and denunciation.

And it's exactly why the federal government is now looking at making serious crimes ineligible for conditional sentences.

They have no choice. Judges like McCawley just don't get it.


154
Main / questions
Apr 11, 2006, 01:51 AM
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155
Main / Hearing for abortion bid mother
Mar 20, 2006, 04:56 PM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4826148.stm

Hospital bosses are attempting to have a damages bid from a woman who gave birth following an abortion thrown out.
Stacy Dow launched the £250,000 civil claim against the NHS to pay for the twin who survived the procedure at Perth Royal Infirmary.

Ms Dow said she needed to cover the "financial burden" of raising her daughter Jayde.

But Perth Sheriff Court heard the 21-year-old was given no guarantees the abortion would be successful.

Ms Dow, who had Jayde when she was 16, is claiming Tayside University Hospitals NHS Trust failed to properly carry out the abortion at Perth Royal Infirmary in January 2001, constituting a breach of contract.

She decided to have an abortion when she fell pregnant with twins, but a few months later discovered she was still pregnant with one of them, by which time a second abortion was too late.

Hospital bosses, who are defending the action, say Jayde was a normal and healthy child and that the £250,000 claim was excessive.

They accepted one twin was left behind during the abortion but said a doctor carried out the proper checks after the termination and could find no evidence of a remaining foetus.

Termination checks

Advocate David Stephenson, representing the hospital authority, said the case should not proceed.

He said no contract had existed between Ms Dow and her consultant when she was told an abortion would be carried out, so her claim was not relevant.

"Nothing said to (Ms Dow) by the doctor could or did mention a warranty that her pregnancy would be terminated," he said.

"NHS patients do not normally contract with their health trust or health boards for the provision of medical service.

"These services are delivered as part of a statutory obligation."

'No guarantee'

Mr Stephenson said no guarantee had been given to Ms Dow that the abortion would be successful.

He added that only in "truly extraordinary" circumstances would any sort of contract between a doctor and a patient be entered into.

Ms Dow is said to have suffered "distress and anxiety" from the discovery of her continued pregnancy and "pain and discomfort" when she had her daughter by Caesarean section.

She also argued she had suffered economically through a loss of earnings because she was a single mother.

Sheriff Michael Fletcher will decide how the case will proceed, following the legal discussions.
156
Main / The Rantings of a Single Male
Mar 13, 2006, 11:27 AM
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157
Introductions / hey
Mar 13, 2006, 11:21 AM
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