Posted on 04/29/2010 5:34:25 PM PDT by naturalman1975
A teacher who bludgeoned a disruptive pupil with a dumbbell walked free yesterday when a 'common sense' jury acquitted him in minutes.
Peter Harvey was cleared of trying to kill a 14-year-old boy who told him to '**** off'.
His trial heard how he was targeted by teenagers who knew he had been off work with depression and stress.
The 'fundamentally decent' man snapped when the science class set out to upset him, with a girl - described as the pupils' ringleader - using a camcorder to film the incident so she could distribute it round the school.
Mr Harvey dragged the boy - a persistent troublemaker - into a cupboard and hit him about the head with a 3kg dumbbell shouting 'die, die, die'.
The attack fractured the teenager's skull.
But yesterday a jury swiftly acquitted him of attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
Judge Michael Stokes QC told the court 'common sense had prevailed'.
Mr Harvey, 50, had already admitted the lesser count of grievous bodily harm but the judge said he would not be sent to prison.
It was revealed that the judge had already said that the trial should never have been brought because of the teacher's 'previous good character' and his state of mind when he attacked the boy.
Astonishingly, the father-of-two had spent eight months on remand before the trial - despite his own mental state, his wife suffering severe depression and their daughter having Asperger's syndrome.
The judge told him at Nottingham Crown Court: 'You have already effectively served a sentence that is more than the appropriate sentence.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
So, how many kids have you beaten this week ;-)
Yes, I agree - he should have. And he also thinks that now. That’s why he plead guilty to the GBH charge - it means he can never teach again, even if he decides he’s capable. He’s made that mistake once.
>> 40 years ago this kid would have had his ass paddled with a cricket bat
But the absence of discipline today doesn’t warrant the reported violent reaction - the out-of-control teacher was effectively bludgeoning the kid in the head with a hammer.
The story is bizarre.
So, what happens when the next teacher “snaps”?
Sure. I understand how in your position, you can’t condone it.
I have no such limitation, though.
This whole thing just pisses me off reading it. I don’t know what kind of man this teacher is, but I’ll bet he has had to put up with a lot of abuse for a long time.
I fault the school system, the kid’s “parent”, and society.
The school system, because no matter how badly this “kid” acts, there is likely no recourse. As a teacher, you probably have to figure out how to TRY to teach while this POS runs around the class with a ruler and a bunsen burner. More infuriatingly, the other little POS with the camera. This is why I am not a teacher. I would have grabbed the thing out of her hand, ground it under my heel, and handed it back to her with a sympathetic shrug and a John Belushi-ish “Sorry.” As for him, I would paraphrase Robert Duvall in “Open Range” where he says “Good health to them who has it comin’.” In this case, “A good beatin’ to them who has it comin’.” In any case, the twerp should have been banned from school grounds and sent to a place that is a fairly unpleasant environment to learn in.
His “parent”, for not teaching him manners. I got no respect for parents who would raise a kid to do what he did.
I blame society for perhaps not allowing the school and the parent to discipline this “child” for his own good. Grabbing your kid by the arm and giving the kid a tongue lashing today can put you in jail.
I understand YOU can’t say it naturalman1975, and after reading your posts on FR for a few years, I’ll bet your kid(s) would never treat an adult that way, so you don’t have to say it.
I can say it.
“So, what happens when the next teacher “snaps”?”
Another rotten kid will get what he deserves.
Hey, I believe in corporal punishment - controlled, regulated, corporal punishment. I was caned myself at school - including a couple of extremely severe canings - and as a teacher, when it was allowed in my school, I used it on a handful of occasions.
But I also believe teachers have to stay within the law. You can’t expect students to follow the rules, unless you do yourself.
And doing something to a child that causes them lasting injury - except in defence of your own or anothers safety - does go well beyond what I think is reasonable.
A cracked skull huh? I support holding the little heathens accountable. But that is beyond extreme.
Yeah. I understand. If you are a member of society, you must stay within the boundaries of the law, and there is no excuse for this.
Too bad about the kid.
Hopefully, he won’t be terrorizing anyone in the rest of the school or out on the street.
Also, hopefully he didn't suffer any serious damage to the reasoning centers of his brain so that he doesn't wind with a life time of criminality.
A good whipping always results in an inability to recall previous misdeeds and from then on the kid behaves very well.
Yes. I was paddled in front of the class on two occasions for talking in class and clowning around in class.
I stopped clowning around in class after that. I will admit, I was lucky I didn’t get a dumbell to the head, just a swat to the rear. And not a gentle one, either. A full fledged swing from the baseball coach with what probably was a cricket bat.
I had a shop teacher put my fingers in a vice (we were putting fountain pen cartridges in the vise and squishing them) and he tightened it down pretty tight. I never made fun or personally ridiculed my teachers, and the disruptions I engaged in were things like talking out of turn and such. It was nothing like what this kid did, but maybe in that day, it was viewed that way, particularly in a DoD school.
The point is, all three of these teachers let us know on day one what they expected. And they openly advertised the penalties (Except for Mr. Stauffer...he didn’t tell anyone he would put their fingers in a vise) They let us know up front what would happen, and they backed it up.
You know what? I stopped disrupting class after that. And to this day, I respect all of those teachers. And they know it, even though I have never seen or spoken to them again.
In isolation, I would agree with you - and I might agree anyways.
However, remember that school discipline is not in isolation. Many kids are brutally beaten by out of control classmates. An occasional teacher hitting a student may stop some of that. And if they were allowed to smack a kid regularly, then it might never reach the breaking point...
Yes. Hopefully not. Wouldn’t want it to go that far now.
Talk to the Jury Nullification group. "Justice" is whatever 12 random people say it is. The law be damned.
As we are not discussing this issue generally speaking, but are looking at a particular incident where a teacher fractured a student’s skull, you comments would not appear to apply. The severity of this case is the issue. I can agree that teachers need to be able to apply some form of discipline that works. This was not it.
But you raise a point I had to consider. I believe in common law. I believe that if the jury wants someone to go free, then that person should go free. That's more important than any law on the books. I'm happier with this outcome now.
So, how do you feel about OJ Simpson’s verdict in his murder trial?
Fair enough.
As a parent I personally am against a teacher using corporal punishment - it’s my job to dole out such discipline. But, given the numbers of parents today that have failed to be parents, I can certainly understand where there are some who would welcome giving that tool to teachers. As a public school employee whose job involves dealing with behavior problems of troubled children, I certainly understand the frustration that teachers experience when certain students act out and they, as the teacher, are unable to employ any worthwhile discipline. Perhaps a few whacks to the fleshy back parts from a board would provide the appropriate incentive for students to behave. I don’t actually see any chance of this method coming back into vogue anytime soon.
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