A four-year-old boy with speech and other difficulties was allegedly strapped to a chair by his teacher in the junior infants class soon after starting school, the High Court has heard.
Describing it as a “quite extraordinary case”, Mr Justice Alexander Owens heard a Garda investigation was discontinued after four adults gave statements saying the boy tied himself into the chair.
The case alleged the parents went to his classroom and discovered that their son’s chair was next the teachers desk and had belt straps attached to it.
Details of the case were outlined to the judge after a settlement was reached between the school and the boy’s mother, who had sued for damages on her son’s behalf for, among other things, assault and false imprisonment of her son at the rural school in September, 2018.
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The parties cannot be named by order of the court.
The settlement is without admission of liability by the school, which strongly denies the parents’ claims.
The judge said he was was reluctantly approving the settlement offer, which was not divulged in court. His reluctance was because there was a chance a jury would have awarded an amount greater than the settlement offer if the case had proceeded to trial.
He said a jury might have awarded aggravated and exemplary damages on top of general damages if they thought the four adults who gave statements were not being truthful and had “got together” to make the statements.
Noting from reports provided to the court that the child had speech and language difficulties and dyslexia along with a number of other problems, the judge said: “It is rather shocking that a child would be held in a chair on two days”.
After being shown a photo of the chair, the judge also asked the parents’ barrister, Eanna Mulloy SC, instructed by Callan Tansey Solicitors, why there was a chair like this in the school. Mr Mulloy said it appeared to have been left behind after it was used by another pupil with physical disabilities.
In legal papers, the mother said school staff were made aware his speech difficulties were due to an accident he had as a toddler.
In the first few days the boy was reluctant to go to school and suffered from sleep disturbance, but she put this down to the new situation at school.
There was an issue with him not being allowed to go out to play during the lunch break as he had not eaten his lunch. His teacher and a resource teacher told her he was not settling in, not conforming to school rules and was hiding under the table, she claimed.
She was told he was not ready for school and consideration should be given to putting him into preschool for another year.
On September 17th, as he reluctantly agreed to go to school again, his mother found him with a metal rod in his hand in the back seat of the car, the case claimed. When asked what he was doing with it, he replied: “They’re very cross and I need it”. It was taken off him.
Later that same morning, it was claimed, another parent called to the mother’s home to tell her the child had been tied to a chair in the classroom and he did not like it.
The parents arranged a meeting with the school principal during which they asked to be shown their son’s classroom. The principal and a special needs assistant “hesitated and began to evade the request”, it was claimed.
However, the father was a past pupil and knew where the classroom was. The case alleged that when the parents went to the room, they saw various seats grouped around desks but beside the teacher’s desk was the chair with belt straps which was identified as their son’s chair.
It is claimed that when asked why there were straps on it, the principal said it was to prevent him from falling out as the chair was particularly light. It was claimed the boy’s teacher admitted to strapping him into the chair for an hour on Friday, September 14th and all day on the following Monday, September 17th.
The boy was taken out and enrolled in another school where it was claimed he had settled in well after getting used to the routine.
Asked by Mr Justice Owens about the parents’ attitude to the offer of settlement, Mr Mulloy said they were satisfied with it and he was recommending it.
