R (M) v Commissioner for Local Administration in England
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | MR JUSTICE COLLINS |
| Judgment Date | 31 October 2006 |
| Neutral Citation | [2006] EWHC 2847 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CO/10508/2005 |
| Date | 31 October 2006 |
[2006] EWHC 2847 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2
Mr Justice Collins
CO/10508/2005
MR SAM GRODZINSKI (instructed by Bindmans) appeared on behalf of the CLAIMANT
MR BRIAN ASH QC (instructed by Bevan Britton LLP) appeared on behalf of the DEFENDANT
This claim by M against the Commissioner for Local Administration in England and Wales ("the Ombudsman") seeks to challenge his decision not to entertain a complaint made by M against the London Borough of Bromley.
The background is as follows. The claimant is the father of J, who was born in February 1996. In 2001 J was at an infant school which was maintained by Bromley Council. His parents were concerned that he was reacting very badly to going to school, and they discovered from what he told them that he was, as he asserted, being ill-treated by one of the teachers at the school. Putting it very broadly, she was singling him out for adverse attention, was describing him as an obnoxious child, and when it was drawn to her attention that he had, as indeed she knew, some difficulties because he may have suffered from some form of deficit disorder, she then made observations to the effect that she understood he was "an idiot" and thus he would be treated as "an idiot". The reality is that if he was treated by her in anything like the manner that he alleged, then he was suffering in a way which no child ought to have been suffering, and she was not fit to continue as a teacher of young children.
The parents made a complaint to the school. This was initially in March 2001. It is not necessary for me to go into any further detail. I have outlined the substance of the matters about which the complaint was made.
The head teacher responded to that complaint on 3 April 2001, and she said that she had spoken to the deputy head and to the head of special needs (I think the same individual), the teacher concerned and another teacher who also taught the claimant's son. She said that she could find no substance in any of the serious allegations that had been made. Accordingly, the complaint was rejected. There was a meeting at the school, but the head teacher maintained her view. The parents decided at that stage that they would leave matters because it appeared that the conduct, if it had occurred, had changed and their son was much happier at school and appeared to be getting on well. However, in 2004 when he had left the infant school and had gone to the junior school, it transpired that what had been done to him whilst he was in the infant school had made a lasting adverse impression upon him. This led his parents to have real concerns that something should be done about it (albeit of course now some three years on). Accordingly, they decided that they would make a complaint to the school governors. This they did by means of a letter of 7 July 2004. In it they requested that the serious misconduct of the teacher in question be investigated and considered by a panel of governors. The letter set out in some detail the history of the matter and why it was that they were saying that it needed further attention. They set out why they decided to take the action that they were taking so long after the event. What they said they relied upon was the lasting and severe damage to their son, which had become apparent, and the obvious knock-on effect from his time in the teacher's class because he had been bullied and openly ridiculed in front of his fellow pupils; and that had led them to continue to believe that he was a proper target for that sort of activity by them.
The problems had become apparent since their son was obtaining continuing assistance from a therapist, and further they said that it had come to their attention that there was evidence from other pupils, friends of their son, which tended to confirm that he had been telling the truth when he had made the allegations about what the teacher had done. They said that they would like to attend a meeting of the panel to give further oral and written evidence and ask that it be treated as a matter of urgency, because it would give their son some sense of closure and justice which would hopefully assist in his recovery.
The governors' response was to refer the matter back to the head teacher and to treat it as a fresh complaint because apparently there had been some change of policy between 2001 and 2004. So it was that the substantive answer to the complaint came from the head teacher on 12 July 2004, and essentially she reaffirmed the response that she had given back in 2001, and stated that there was, in her view, following such investigations as she had made, no substance in the complaints.
The claimants were dissatisfied with that response, and accordingly they decided that they would pursue their complaint with the local authority, Bromley Council. Following a number of letters from the Council indicating that they were going to investigate, on 31 August the claimant wrote a letter to the Director of Education at Bromley in which he indicated that, in his view, various people ought to be contacted in order to investigate the matter properly. Among other things, he stated that his son would obviously need to be interviewed in the presence of a responsible adult, and they would not allow him to be questioned by a person whom he associated with the cause of his current distress, but as his therapist was currently dealing with the effects, he felt that her permission would be important. Their son felt a strong sense of injustice, and he believed that his evidence was vital and that the therapist might be prepared to assist. He also made the point that other pupils, who although unprompted had recalled many of the incidents of abuse, ought also to be interviewed.
The response was initially again a holding response, and in due course there was a meeting held with the investigating officer, a Mrs Fuller, and the parents. At that meeting, of which I have a record (made by an employee of the Council), Mrs Fuller explained that the overall purpose of the meeting was to establish if this matter should be dealt with under the authority's Raising Concerns Procedure or under the school's complaints procedure. If the latter, the school would be required to investigate the complaint. I am bound to say that I find that slightly strange because it should have been clear, I would have thought, by then that the claimant had approached the Council because the school had not in his view investigated the matter properly, and any re-investigation which had been carried out apparently following the complaint to the governors had not achieved anything. Accordingly, the parents were clearly not interested in the school itself being required to investigate the complaint. Nor perhaps was there any great point in that some three years later. What they wanted was for the Council to investigate the matter, and it would seem that that would be done under what was described as the Raising Concerns Procedure.
The claimant's wife indicated that what she was concerned with was achieving justice for their son, and that the outcome should be that the teacher in question should no longer continue to be a teacher. In fact by then she had left the school in question, but had gone to another school in the borough.
The question was raised at that meeting whether other children would be interviewed, and Mrs Fuller indicated that parental consent would be required before doing so and that she would be seeking legal advice from the borough solicitor prior to deciding whether to take that approach. So far as interviewing J was concerned, she asked for the parents' views as to whether they would be agreeable to her devising questions in conjunction with his therapist and for the therapist to ask the questions. J's mother confirmed that he trusted the therapist and was happy with her so that she envisaged that the therapist would ask the questions whilst Mrs Fuller observed. Again, his mother stressed that J had a strong sense of injustice and was happy to be interviewed, and details were given of the manner in which the therapist could be contacted. Mrs Fuller apparently confirmed that contact would be made with her to advise her that she would be receiving written clarification from the parents confirming their agreement with her and the employee to meet with her to devise appropriate questions for their son.
It seems that it was not until 10 November that the meeting took place with the therapist. That led to a letter from the claimant to Mrs Fuller in which he stated, having spoken to the therapist, that first the impression was given to her that as the teacher had a hitherto unblemished record, the complaint against the teacher was futile. Secondly, the impression was given that the parents were alleging a conspiracy by staff at the school, but it was pointed out that that was precisely what they were not saying and they had made that clear in their letter of complaint. Thirdly, it was stated that, contrary to the notes of the meeting on 28 September, she had no real wish to question the son at all, and that the complaint had already been investigated and found to be without merit. In the light of that information that they said they obtained from the therapist (and perhaps not surprisingly), they took the view that the manner in which the investigation by Mrs Fuller was being handled was, as...
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