Sometimes you look at your newspaper's front page and you want to emigrate. (But where?) Today was one of those days.
'She skipped diversity training! Burn her!'
I'm afraid I'm still in too dire a state of shock to bring myself to consider at any length Dave's "Look, I'm not a Conservative. I really, really, REALLY am not a Conservative," promise of a 45 per cent higher tax rate for all those stinking, capitalist running dogs earning more than £125,000.
So let us instead foam and froth gently about the story of the headmistress hounded out of a school by a clique of activists - including a Muslim convert named Paul Martin - accusing her of Islamophobia.
Can someone help me make up my mind which aspect of the story is the most annoying:
The loss - forever - of one of the few remaining decent, hard working, committed head teachers in the state system?
The craven pusillanimity of the council workers too scared to stick up for her?
The fact that an organisation as pointless and vieux chapeau as the Commission For Racial Equality is still capable of inspiring such fear?
The further confirmation that "racism" and "Islamophobia" have become the 21st century equivalent of "She's a witch! Burn her!", brooking no defence, or rational debate of any kind?
The £407,781 of council taxpayers' money that has been squandered on compensation. The God-knows-how-much-more that has been squandered on legal fees?
Or the fact that this grim-sounding Muslim convert character Paul Martin has not yet been encouraged to show the full courage of his religious convictions by emigrating forthwith from the kufar-infested hellhole that is Woking to one of those more rigorously Islamic realms - where diarrhoea is a way of life, perhaps Helmand?
Erica Connor was forced into early retirement through stress after governors at New Monument School in Woking turned her into a scapegoat by claiming she was Islamophobic. But the local education authority failed to help her as its "excessively tolerant" officers were more worried about complaints to the race equality watchdog than her suffering. The High Court agreed that the Surrey County Council was negligent in not stepping in to support the headteacher, and ordered it to pay £407,781 in compensation. This includes damages for psychiatric injury, loss of income and pension, medical expenses and the premature end of the career she loved. As she left court, Mrs Connor, 57, said: "The last five years have been a long haul at great personal cost to myself and my family, so I am thrilled that justice has prevailed. "It is so unfortunate that matters have taken so long to resolve and at such a financial cost, but I finally feel vindicated in terms of the accusations of racism and Islamophobia against myself. "For a protracted length of time I was subjected to dreadful pressure from a small group of individuals, unrepresentative of the local community, without the support I would have expected from Surrey County Council." The court heard that in 1998 Mrs Connor took over the school – where up to 85 per cent of pupils were Muslim and 90 per cent spoke English as a second language – and test results improved "very considerably" for the first few years. However in 2003 two new members – Paul Martin, a parent governor, and Mumtaz Saleem, a nominee of the local education authority – joined its governing body and tried to take it over. The judge, Mr John Leighton-Williams, QC, said: "I am satisfied that they sought to monopolise governors body meetings with a view to imposing their own agenda and were prepared to do so regardless of the interests of the school and anyone who resisted that agenda." While clearing Mr Saleem of harassment, the judge added: "Mr Saleem's approach extended to offensive verbal attacks at governing body meetings." He said it was "not unreasonable" for Mrs Connor and the school's staff "to consider that there was an agenda to convert New Monument to an Islamic faith school". Eventually Mr Martin was voted off the "dysfunctional" governing body but claimed he had been "removed for blowing the whistle on institutional racism" and "cited an old school document with pictures of seven children, only one of them dark-skinned", the court was told. An anonymous petition was circulated, "attacking Mrs Connor falsely and in vituperative terms", it was claimed. However the council failed to intervene or spot that Mrs Connor, who now lives in Abergavenny, was at risk of suffering stress. She was forced to take sick leave in late 2005, never to return. The judge said that instead, council officers had shown "excessive tolerance" towards the two governors and displayed "misplaced sympathy for Mr Martin", fearing that they were at risk of a complaint to the Commission for Racial Equality. He added: "The lack of timely intervention in the governing body meant that Mr Martin's and Mr Saleem's conduct there had the effect of tearing apart the governing body. "And these matters, together with poor response by the council, had as their effect two years of anxiety and low morale for the school staff, stress leading to a need for early retirement in some staff and Mrs Connor and disruption in the local community with, on the evidence, little, if anything, positive to show for it."Head teacher who suffered stress from racism accusations wins £400,000 damages
A headteacher whose health and career were ruined by false accusations of racism and religious discrimination at a primary school dominated by Muslims has won £400,000 in damages.
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