Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
The Teacher Misconduct Panel took place in a nondescript office building in East London. On the third floor, a small meeting room with a large oval conference table gave little space for movement. Erica sidestepped along the far side, following her union representative – Richard – to their seats. Cleaning fluid, ink and paper: it smelled like a classroom. Anxiety crept through her and she tried to push her shoulders down, clear her mind, breathe.
Richard was a nice guy, but more suited to sending peppy group emails than face-to-face situations. Meeting her outside the room this morning, he’d smiled hopefully at her. ‘Let’s do this.’
Opposite them, on the other side of the conference table, sat a panel of three people who would decide her fate. Before they introduced themselves, she knew that the panel had to include at least one current teacher and a lay member – someone who’d never been a teacher.
The chair of the panel – Polly Wood – was a deputy head, around fifty, she’d guess, and wore a long floral dress with a black jacket. Her smile was kind. ‘Thank you for coming in today, Erica. I can imagine that this has been a very difficult time.’
That was the understatement of the century. Erica squeezed her hands into fists under the desk to stop them from trembling. ‘I just want to get this over with, to be honest.’
She tilted her head to show her understanding. ‘We’ll try and get through it all as quickly as we can. We’ve already been through all the information sent to us. But there was something new that we were sent late yesterday, which I’m not sure you’d have seen?’
Erica glanced at Richard, who shrugged and shook his head. She turned back to Polly. ‘No. We haven’t.’
‘Okay, then. I presume, though, that you know that the referral to the Teaching Regulation Agency came from parents at the school and that, because a child was physically injured, the decision was made to undertake an investigation?’
Bile burned the back of Erica’s throat. She hadn’t been able to stomach anything to eat this morning. Though she’d had weeks to digest this, it was still so hard to hear. She’d always been a popular teacher. Never had a parental – or pupil – complaint in the whole of her career. It was one of the reasons the head had been so keen for her to attend the trip in the first place: she was well known for being firm but fair. These three people wouldn’t know that, though, would they? It was so humiliating. ‘Yes. I’m aware of that.’
‘Our job today is to make a decision whether there is a case to answer and, if so, whether the alleged misconduct is potentially serious enough to result in prohibition from teaching. This can come under one of three headings: unacceptable professional conduct; conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute; or that you have been convicted of a relevant offence.’
Though it was part of the process that all of this was explained again, it was like water torture, each word was a drip more painful than the last. Erica swallowed and glanced at Richard. He shuffled some papers.
Polly clasped her hands together and leaned forward in her chair. ‘According to the parents who made the referral to the TRA, on the day of the accident, you’d been—’ she glanced at the paperwork ‘—victimising their boys. Following them around when other children were allowed the freedom to explore on their own. The boys claim that you effectively chased them into the road, resulting, unfortunately, in quite a serious injury for one of the students. We also have your written statement explaining that you were asked to keep a close eye on one of the boys in particular due to past challenging behaviour.’
There was nothing in her tone to give any kind of clue, so Erica tried to read Polly’s face. As a teacher herself, surely Polly had understood the need for her to tail a child who might – had – put himself and others in danger? Again, she ran the events of that day in slow motion through her mind. Had she been too close? Had she made the boys uncomfortable or been too strong in the way she spoke? As she had many times in the last three months, she saw again Luke’s face, the deliberation whether to follow his friends or his teacher’s instruction, the decision to dart across the road, the screech of the car, the metallic thud…
‘Mrs Mason?’
She looked up and saw a raised eyebrow on Polly’s face. Clearly, she’d missed a question. ‘Sorry. Could you repeat that?’
‘Of course. I asked if there was anything you wanted to add to your statement at this stage?’
What could she add? That she’d woken in a hot sweaty mess at least twice a week ever since? How she wished with every ounce of her that she’d stuck to her guns and refused to go on the trip? Explain the impact of that day – that guilt – on every part of her life since? She shook her head. ‘No. Nothing to add.’
Polly nodded. ‘Okay. Now I’ve got all of that out of the way, I can tell you about this new evidence. Another child on the trip, who will obviously remain anonymous, actually filmed the whole thing.’
Erica’s gasp was involuntary and dramatic. It was on film.
Polly continued. ‘The student has said that they were recording the student who was arguing with you. For comedy value. Then obviously the accident happened and they were afraid that they would get into trouble. The date of this panel is being shared on various parent WhatsApp groups and, when he confessed to his parents, they got in touch.’
It was difficult to breathe. The room was so hot. Erica’s face burned. ‘What does it show?’
‘The whole thing. Because of the sensitive nature of the recording, it was decided not to send it to you on email. But you can request to see it. However, the important part is that the recording shows that you were not physically close to the boys and that, at no point, do you raise your voice in a way that could be seen as threatening.’
Erica had to hold tight to the arms on her chair to stop her from sliding from it. Warped from so many replays, her memory of what she’d said and done – or not done – had been completely unreliable.
She could barely whisper her next question. ‘What does this mean for the investigation?’
Polly smiled. ‘It means that the investigation will be closed. There will be no further action. You are free to return to your teaching position.’
It took a while for the words to filter through to Erica’s brain. It was over? As easily as that? All those weeks of self-recrimination and guilt and worry and anxiety and it was ‘you can come back and be a teacher again’? She wanted to leave, to find somewhere quiet, to weep. ‘Thank you.’
The final bits of paperwork and closing remarks passed in a blur. Then they were outside the room, Richard shaking her hand and wishing her well. Not trusting her legs to carry her too far just yet, she sank down into one of the plastic chairs in the waiting area to catch her breath. That’s when she saw the woman looking at her. Slight, dark-haired and pretty, there was something familiar that she just couldn’t place.
Tentatively, the woman approached. ‘Hi, Mrs Mason? Is that you?’
Erica pasted on a smile for, she assumed, this must be a parent of a child she’d taught in the past. It was an occupational hazard to live in the same area that you worked. Over her time as a teacher, she’d often been caught at the most inopportune times by a current or ex-student. ‘Hi. Yes, it’s me.’
When the woman smiled, though, recognition chilled Erica’s spine. She looked just like her son.
‘Thank goodness. It is you. Otherwise, I’d have looked a complete fool. I’m Amanda. Amanda Taylor. Luke Taylor’s mum.’
After the accident on the trip, Erica had gone in the ambulance with Luke and stayed with him until his parents arrived. The last time she’d seen Amanda Taylor’s face, it’d been ashen with worry. After that, she’d had to return to the accommodation until another teacher could be sent to replace her.
Now Amanda was standing in front of her in a pale-blue shirt and smart trousers, with a face she couldn’t quite read. ‘How are you here? I mean…did you have to…’
Amanda shook her head. ‘No. I wasn’t required to be here. But I’ve seen the film. And I knew the hearing was today. I just wanted to speak with you.’
This still wasn’t over. What did she want? ‘How’s Luke?’
Despite the screech of car tyres and the thud of impact that still woke Erica in the night, Luke had been extremely fortunate that the worst of his injuries was a broken arm. That hadn’t stopped her replaying her actions over and over along with the catastrophic anxiety about what might have happened.
‘He’s healing really well. He’s back at school.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t know if you already knew that?’
Surely she knew that Erica had been suspended until the investigation was complete? Or did she wonder if Mollie had told her? Or one of the other teachers? ‘No. I didn’t know. That’s great.’
Amanda’s voice was hesitant, but she clearly had something she wanted to say. ‘I should’ve spoken to you. Before it all got out of hand. By the time I asked, we were advised not to. I still don’t really know why.’
Erica nodded. ‘I was told the same.’
Amanda’s eyes dropped to her hands, where she was fiddling with her wedding ring. ‘I was terrified when we got that call from the school. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare, isn’t it? Being told that your child has been hurt. My husband drove so fast that night I thought that we were going to have an accident ourselves. We just needed to get to him as fast as possible.’
Still raw from the panel, Erica didn’t know if she could take this. But what else could she do? Whatever had been concluded in there, she was still present when this poor woman’s son was hurt. ‘I can imagine.’
All of this still weighed on her, but when Amanda looked up, it was her eyes that looked guilty. ‘We should never have done this. It was never your fault. I knew it wasn’t your fault.’
A hard knot of a sob rose from Erica’s chest and almost choked her. She wanted to speak, to thank her for these precious words, but it made it impossible to open her mouth without risking letting it escape.
Amanda’s eyes begged her to understand. ‘It was one of the others. Vinnie’s mum. She was so fired up with it all. Said the school had treated her son so badly. We kind of got swept up in it. But later…my husband says he thinks she was just trying to get some sort of payout. Now we’ve seen the film, she’ll have to drop it. It’s clear that the boys ran out in the road. You weren’t to blame.’
Again, that knot in her throat threatened. She knew this now. And she’d been completely exonerated. Andrew had been through this with her over and over again. But still…‘If I hadn’t been there. If I hadn’t spoken to them.’
Amanda shook her head. ‘You can’t think like that. The what-ifs will destroy you. The boys need to take responsibility for what they did.’ She paused. ‘And so do us parents. It’s us who owe you an apology.’
Pressing her lips together wasn’t enough to stop a solitary tear from escaping. Erica brushed it away with the back of her hand, but wasn’t fast enough to prevent Amanda from seeing it.
Her hands flew to her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve upset you, haven’t I? And that really wasn’t my intention.’
‘No.’ Erica shook her head. ‘No, you haven’t upset me. I’m glad you came. It’s just…I’m struggling a bit with my son at the moment and I’m terrified that something like that might happen to him. If I take my eye off him for one second.’
Face softening again, Amanda held out her hand. ‘I get it. I really do. After the accident, I wanted to wrap Luke up in bubble wrap, but you can’t, can you? However terrifying it is, we have to let them find their own way in the world.’
Someone else telling her the same thing. It wasn’t as easy as that, though, was it? ‘I have to go. My family need me at home.’
‘Of course. And I really am sorry that we put you through all this. If it’s any comfort, Luke was terribly upset when he found out. He really liked having you as his teacher. Will you go back now?’
Go back? How far back would she need to go to make everything okay again?