Teacher in broomstick case defeat
A teacher accused of performing a lewd act with a broomstick in front of a class has failed in a marathon legal bid to prove she was unfairly sacked.
Patricia Davies was assistant head of science at Willingsworth High School in Tipton in October 2004 when pupils claimed she simulated a sex act using a broom.
The 50-year-old, from Wolverhampton, has insisted she was the victim of a 'conspiracy'. But her fight to prove that the disputed incident should not have been held against her by her bosses collapsed when the Appeal Court ruled yesterday that her dismissal by Sandwell Council was not unfair.
Miss Davies was given a final warning over the incident in 2005. She was sacked in 2006 for alleged misconduct and the council accepted that the broomstick allegation had weighed the balance against her.
But Miss Davies campaigned that the final warning should have been treated as 'a nullity'.
Miss Davies argued that records showed that she had in fact been teaching Hooke's Law of Elasticity on the critical day.
