A council's "lamentable capitulation" to an aggressive campaign to "capture" a secular primary school for the Muslim faith caused the headteacher to suffer a devastating mental breakdown, according to a top judge.
Ruling that headteacher Erica Connor, was entitled Ł400,000 damages, the Court of Appeal criticised criticised Surrey County Council for failing to protect her.
Mrs Connor, 57, left the New Monument primary school in Woking in 2006 because of stress after she was accused of Islamophobia.
In March last year, a deputy High Court judge ruled that the council had failed in its duty to to intervene when the actions of the schools governors created problems. He awarded her Ł407,700 damages. An appeal against that decision was yesterday rejected with judges saying the council had been unwilling to tackle the issue because of the sensitivities involved.
More than four fifths of the school's intake were Muslims and problems began in 2003 when Paul Martin, a Muslim convert, was elected a parent governor and Mumtaz Saleem was appointed as a local education authority governor.
Mr Martin started making allegations about anti-Muslim comments by members of staff which led to an investigation by Mrs Connor.
She found that all the staff denied the allegations which she said had demoralised them.
An official review also found no evidence of deliberate racism or religious bias but said the governing body had become dysfunctional.
When Mr Martin was removed from the board of governors in June 2005, he wrote a letter of complaint saying it was because he had been raising complaints of institutional racism within the school.
A few days later a petition
At the court of Appeal, Lord Justice Sedley, who was sitting with Lord Justice Laws and Lord Justice Thomas, said the council had faced an "unenviable task" in trying to respond to rampant ethnic and religious tensions at The New Monument School, in Woking, Surrey, where more than 80% of the pupils are from an Islamic background.
But in its attempts to "temporise and compromise" with those intent on transforming it into an Islamic faith school, he said the council failed in its duty to protect Mrs Connor from the fallout, and that "very plainly" caused her breakdown.
During the hearing of Mrs Connor's case last year, she accused the council of cowardice for failing to stand by her as the school was torn apart by friction amongst its governors.
And Judge John Leighton-Williams QC said that, by late 2003, the school's governing body had become "dysfunctional" and it was "quite clear" that the conduct of two of the governors - Mr Martin and Mr Saleem - was responsible for that.
Ruling Surrey County Council liable for Mrs Connor's suffering, the judge said council officers had shown "excessive tolerance" towards the two governors and a "lack of timely intervention" had resulted in the governing body being "torn apart".
He said that, from June 2004 onwards, the council "ought to have foreseen that Mrs Connor was at risk of psychiatric injury from stress. By late June 2005 that risk had intensified."
The result for Mrs Connor was "a severe depressive episode associated with symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" that effecively anihilated her teaching career.
Matters finally reached a head in September 2005 when Mrs Connor referred herself to a health adviser and, shortly afterwards, went on sick leave with a depressive illness, never to return.
The judge said of the two governors: "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."
He added the objective of Mr Martin and Mr Saleem "was at the very least to introduce an increasing role for the Muslim religion in New Monument school."
Upholding the judge's ruling today, Lord Justice Sedley said: "Surrey County Council found itself faced with the unenviable task of responding in an equitable fashion to an inequitable campaign designed to capture a secular state school for a particular faith.
"Had this been a purely theological issue, the authority's proper response would have been simple and staightforward; it was because there was a strong ethnic component that the issue became complicated.
"Where the council nevertheless went wrong was in temporising and compromising with this move instead of protecting the head, the staff and the school from it."
Lord Justice Laws added that Surrey had had to make "sensitive and difficult decisions", but agreed that the root of Mrs Connor's breakdown was "the council's lamentable capitulation to aggression".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...breakdown.html