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School security under spotlight as Leeds teacher is murdered in school (29 April 2014)

Date: 29/04/2014
Duncan Lewis, Crime Solicitors, School security under spotlight as Leeds teacher is murdered in school

The murder of a Leeds schoolteacher has opened up the debate over whether schools should routinely screen pupils for weapons.

Ann Maguire, 61, died in hospital after being attacked by a male pupil at Leeds Catholic College. The respected teacher taught Religious Knowledge and Spanish at the school.

The Daily Mail reports that 500 pupils are expelled for assaulting a member of staff at school every year.

Some schools have already installed airport-style metal detectors at the school gates to screen pupils as they enter school. School are also legally entitled to frisk pupils and confiscate items considered “contraband”.

Groups of pupils can also be scanned using wand scanners or security technology at gates.

The 15-year-old arrested for Ann Maguire’s murder has been described as a ”middle class drug user” who had uploaded an image of the Grim Reaper to his Facebook page. He approached the teacher and stabbed her repeatedly in the neck in front of horrified pupils.

Despite the risk of assault to teachers from some pupils, deputy head of the National Association of Head Teachers, Russell Hobby, said that teachers did not want to “lock down all schools where there are no problems or risks”:

“People are not necessarily comfortable with the powers – what I think is right, is that this is taken on a school-by-school basis. Where there are tensions in a particular school, that school could take the choice – for example, to exclude a pupil or to install metal detectors,” said Mr Hobby.

“Schools need to be confident in exercising their powers and know they will be backed by the local authority. A school has to set boundaries and be that place in the community where a pupil knows they will be safe.

“Schools should be open to the community – unless you have got particular reasons to suspect there might be issues,” Mr Hobby added.

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